


The Other Daughter

by BunnyMoss



Series: The Other Daughter [1]
Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 4
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Barebacking, Canon-Typical Violence, Captivity, Child Marriage (Referenced), Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fluff, Golden Path, Hostage Situations, Mildly Dubious Consent, Minor Character Death, Mutual Pining, Non-Consensual Bondage, Self-Discovery, Smut, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, Torture, Waterboarding, Whipping, longfic, mutual handjobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-01-14 20:28:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 126,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18483772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BunnyMoss/pseuds/BunnyMoss
Summary: "A week ago, that same woman had been laid out on a seat in the grips of an anxiety attack, hyperventilating over the prospect of seventeen hours stuck in the air with him. And in the course of one day, one life or death situation, Pagan had managed somehow to inadvertently shove her through a needle-narrow pressure cooker and squeeze out some sort of lethal creature on the other side."-For Twenty-six years Vanya has done nothing more than study, work, and nanny Paul Harmon’s daughter on weekdays. Now that he’s been home for awhile, laid off from his lengthy business ventures, things have been interesting. An international deal gone sour leaves Paul in danger and now these lethal strangers are apparently after his loved ones too. This leaves her in the hands of a strange man named Pagan who assures her a country called Kyrat is the safest place for her while Paul picks up the pieces back in America.





	1. Strange Tidings

Saturday mornings are usually for sleeping in, usually for savoring and going slow and letting all the sleepiness out of the system. A single phone call can change that in an instant, but obligations are obligations. In all the time Paul has been gone, Vanya has never had to spend this much time at the Harmon household on weekends. Weekdays have always been her domain, never the sacred sanctity of Saturday and Sunday. Nevertheless, duty calls. Or, rather, Paul calls. Again.

Insistently.

Twice, actually, before she finally bothers to pluck the phone off the kitchen counter and answer it. The screen is glaringly bright, and the little timestamp in the upper corner reads only _6:08 AM_. Paul’s face is scrunched up in his little contact photo, cheek mashed against hers to fit in the frame so they can smile together. Taken at Disney or something, somewhere a handful of years ago before he started going away for months on end.

“Hey, Van, you on your way yet?” He doesn’t even let her have a chance to speak when she picks up.

“Leaving in a couple minutes, I’ll be there at 6:30 don’t worry about it. You can head out whenever you need to,” She assures him, and he hangs up before she can even say goodbye.

Paul is always anxious, _always_. He’s become a nervous man since his layoff, and the past two months of job searching have done him no good at all to stifle that new side of him. It’s been hard to watch him devolving into terse phone calls and bountiful texts at all hours, but she’s never been one to question him. She can’t begin to understand what he went through in Hong Kong that would have led to him coming home so abruptly and _roughly_.

Vanya sets her phone back on the counter where she’d found it, staring at the screen for a second as she lets herself experience the exhaustion she’s been holding onto all morning, and then she returns to the task at hand. It’s not like there’s much to do for the day, no pets to feed or children to care for before she sets off – she lives alone and prefers things this way – but something about leaving her house untidied before she leaves just irks her the wrong way. When last night’s dinner plate has been rinsed and put in the washer, she sets out with just enough time to make the walk over to Paul’s house and get there with a few minutes to spare.

The walk isn’t a long one, and the fresh air does her mind some good. She’s glad to live close by, just two blocks away in their quiet little St. Paul neighborhood, especially when they’ve taken to keeping her at their beck and call lately. It’s a miracle the Harmons haven’t just asked her to move into the guest bedroom at this point to keep tabs on Ashley while they do whatever it is they do out of the house.

She’s just padding up the driveway of their quaint two-story brick house when the garage door grumbles noisily, slowly yawning open on the family SUV. The engine’s already purring, and moments later Paul is jogging down the three steps from the kitchen door into the garage, keys in hand, ready to get going. He doesn’t seem to notice her, not that he ever really does any more. _Too twitchy_.

“Hey Van!” Laura calls as Vanya’s eyes trace Paul’s long strides around the front of the car to the driver’s side door.

Paul stops in his tracks, looks surprised at the sudden appearance of his sitter. Vanya waves, rushing in her last few steps to catch up to the two of them before they take off.

“Hey thanks for rushing over so quick, sorry we bugged you,” Paul says, scrubbing his hands through his shaggy black hair as he comes back around the rear of the SUV to meet her and his wife at the side of the vehicle.

He’s jingling his keys anxiously in his hand, something Vanya does too, and she knows he’s itching to get out of the house.

“We’re just running out to grab some groceries and then Paul’s got a doctor’s appointment. We should be home around two if that’s alright. We completely forgot, otherwise we would have let you know way sooner,” Laura explains, apologetic worry knitting her pretty blonde brows together as she looks her way.

“No worries Mrs. Harmon,” Vanya says, offering the best smile she can muster this early in the morning, _not like I didn’t need the sleep after how late you kept me over last night when you had your ‘dinner date.’_

“Vanya, you know you can call me Laura. I’ve known you how many years? Twenty-six?” Laura chides, and Vanya’s nose twitches.

Much as she adores the woman, it just doesn’t feel right, not given the circumstances. Not given their relationship.

“Not gonna happen Mrs. H, I’ll see you at two,” she assures the older woman with a grin, and that’s that.

The SUV is down the driveway and the garage door is shut before Vanya has even made it through the living room into the foyer to kick her shoes off by the front door. By the time she’s made it back into the kitchen to help herself to a cup of instant coffee she’s realized Ashley must still be upstairs and fast asleep. She’d have been helped to a tight hug around the legs by now otherwise. How considerate of them to leave the girl to get her beauty rest on such an _important_ morning of the week...

Vanya just sinks into one of their plush leather couches and skims her hand over her jeans pocket when she realizes her cellphone must still be sitting on her kitchen counter, dying a lonely death in her house all by itself. She grimaces in lamentation and tosses her head back, wishing for all the world that Ashley would find it in herself to wake up and come downstairs so at least she could watch television with her. It isn’t worth the pouting or the whining to even try to turn the thing on and just mute it. That girl has super-senses.

But, almost like she’s heard her innermost thoughts, Vanya hears two little feet hit he upstairs floor and come padding across the hall. Down the stairs she comes, trepid and seeking, and when that little blonde head peeks around the corner at the bottom of the stairs to see Vanya’s raven curls on the couch, Ashley chirps in excitement and nearly launches herself right over the back of the furniture to get to her. Less than 24 hours since she’s last seen her, and she still gets the same treatment every time.

“Vanya!! I get another bonus day?” Ashley asks as she plants herself firmly on her lap, and she laments that the child is starting to get far too big for this kind of cuddling.

“Another bonus day, yeah,” Vanya says, offering her another of the best smiles she can.

_Faking smiles is going to be a trend today_.

Ashley’s hands scrabble for her pockets just like they always do, seeking for her phone. She’s become over-fond of phone games in the past year or so, and Vanya has had to put a protective lock on her phone to keep the poor girl from getting into anything she shouldn’t stumble across by accident. It would take one photo from the wrong man saved to the wrong place at the wrong time…

“Sorry honey, I left it at home today. Let’s get you some breakfast huh?”

“Aw, man, I wanted to beat that last level of your Rook Island game!” Ashley pouts, and _god_ how easy it’s become to ignore that little pushed-out lip, “Are you sure you left it at home? You didn’t just hide it ‘cuz you wanted to beat it yourself?”

“I promise, bee, now come on. I’m hungry too,” Vanya ruffles her hair, and pushes her up off her lap, thankful to feel the circulation in her legs again when she rises easily.

-

When a plate of toast and eggs has been placed firmly in Ashley’s eager hands she sends the girl off to sit out on the back porch where she loves to watch the mourning doves peck at the suet and birdseed, promising to join her soon enough. With no phone to occupy her, she may as well do some cleaning before she lets herself sit down to watch TV. She may work for no pay, but Paul and Laura have been covering the rent and upkeep on her mother’s house since she passed away, and damned if she doesn’t feel like she needs to earn her keep to stay there. It’s the whole reason she’s here today in the first place, _curse you Paul, you generous bastard_.

There’s an apron she’s stashed under the kitchen sink – not like she hasn’t stashed a million things in this house she’s practically grown up in for as long as her other home – and a duster in the pantry. Hair knotted up at the crown of her head, apron tied tight above her wide hips, she’s ready to take on the den. How Paul’s man-cave has collected that much dust even after his homecoming is beyond her. He spends so much time in there job searching that it’s a wonder there’s a speck of dust anywhere, but he’s constantly complaining about it. There must be something she can do about it.

Vanya shuffles past the front door in her socked feet, dusting tabletops here and there as she goes, and out of the corner of her eye she catches a silhouette in the frosted glass pane of the front doorway. A statuesque figure, just about as tall as her, in black and maroon, features indistinguishable through the foggy finish of the window. She can’t help but pause just out of sight of the doorway, just within earshot as she hears the voice of the approaching figure fade in.

“… _no_ I’m not getting you a souvenir. _Gary,_ it’s not that kind of visit. Minnesota is so terribly drab, by the by…”

A man’s voice, from the deep tone of it. She can’t make out much more than that, and before she can eavesdrop any more there comes a sharp knock on the door, startling her more than it should have. It’s her own domicile for all intents and purposes, after all, and she will not be harassed this morning. Ashley hasn’t come back in from the back porch yet, and until this stranger is gone she prays the girl will just _stay_ out back that way.

_Deep breaths, Vanya. Probably harmless. Maybe he’s a salesman._

She has to bend down just a bit to use the peep-hole, but all she can see is the breast of his black coat. He knocks again, and she can hear him clearing his throat from the other side of the door impatiently. Finally she turns the lock and pulls the door open with a brusque _can-I-help-you_ glare in her eye.

“Hi?” she gets out, more in question than greeting before she fizzles out, eyes widening as she soaks him in.

Standing before her is a man who looks to be in his late forties, dressed smartly in a black wool coat that almost doesn’t suit the nice spring weather. A shock of platinum blond hair sweeps over blonde brows and dark almond eyes lined with what appears to be mascara and a touch of kohl. Fine lines and freckles dappled over a face that seems to be just a touch older than it probably should be, but somehow so much younger all the same as he raises an eyebrow in question at her ensuing somewhat hostile silence. She’s not one to judge a book by its cover, but if this man were on the shelf he’d be one with a vibrant dust jacket. A bemused smirk plays on his lips for just the briefest of moments that she barely catches it and he clears his throat to break the tense between them. He hangs up the call on the smartphone in his hand and stuffs it away in the breast pocket of his coat, and she realizes he’s got a suitcase beside him.

“Yes, hello,” he says, almost playfully, voice all silk and dark coffee, a posh British dialect she wasn’t expecting, “De Pleur is expecting me?”

“…Sorry who?” Her thick black brows furrow, and his do too as he processes her response.

His hand twitches on the handle of the suitcase he’s brought up the front walk with him. His fingers are long, his nails are nicely manicured.

“Is he home?” The stranger presses, and she stands her ground.

“Just me, _sorry._ I’m the lady of the house at the moment. Who are you looking for again?” she asks cautiously, asserting just enough of herself to leave no room for doubt.

Relief seems to wash over him in a strangely bodily way, and she’s not sure why this would be so. What could she have said?

“Ah, my apologies! Is Paul home? Or Laura perhaps?” he explains, now gesturing with his hands ever so subtly like he’s holding something back but trying to enunciate a point to her she’s supposed to be getting, “The Harmon family? They should be expecting me…”

The way he appears almost crestfallen in a way should irritate her more than it does, but she finds herself more confused than anything. There’s no car parked in front of the house on the street, or anything in the driveway, and she wonders if he’s been brought here by a cab. His eyes are seeking every inch of her through long delicate lashes, trying to discern something about her like he recognizes some feature of her.

“Oh, wow okay. Nobody told me anything, uh. Nobody’s home right now,” Vanya says, hoping this answer will suffice enough to assuage him.

What more can she do? Paul certainly isn’t here, and she’s not keen on having to entertain a stranger this early in the morning when she’s already trying to get home sooner rather than later if she can help it.

“Well, _you’re home_ , certainly,” he points out bemusedly, almost snorting through his nose, “but where are my manners? My name is Pagan. I’m an old friend and a business partner of Paul’s. We worked together until very recently, you see. We made arrangements that I was to be picked up at the airport early this morning when I got in, and when he never showed up I figured I could just catch a cab over… seems he’s forgotten all about me…”

His shoulders sag, and his thick brows scrunch up as he sighs, and all she can feel is pity for the man she’s only just met. As put together as he was moments ago, he looks _exhausted_. And she understands all too well how forgetful Paul has become in the last two months, all but curling in on himself and pushing out everything around him except for Ashley and Laura. Much as she loathes the thought of putting on another fake smile and pushing through the morning making new friends, she breathes a heavy sigh and lets her guard down. _Best fake smile, Vanya. There you go. He deserves it, poor tired man._

“I’m so sorry. I’m Vanya,” She offers her hand for him to shake, and for all the world he lights right back up again, “Come inside, make yourself at home, I’ll call Paul and let him know you’re here. They just left an hour ago.”

“Oh, _you_ dear, are an angel. Thank you so much,” Pagan says, shaking her hand firmly as he picks up his suitcase with his other.

This close, he’s most certainly as tall as she is, and she’s not small. In fact, it’s not often she meets someone who stands at eye-level with her and perhaps that’s part of his charm. He’s not afraid to look her in the eye as he steps up and follows her through the door into the foyer. As he breezes past she notices a single diamond earring in one lobe, glinting in the sunlight, a curious offset to the asymmetry of his aesthetic.

The moment the door is shut behind them he’s on a beeline for the living room, dropping his suitcase by the arm of one of the plush leather couches and indeed making himself at home as she halfheartedly has requested him to do. She makes to head for the kitchen, to the closest handset of the Harmon’s home phone so she can call Paul straight away, but she’s immediately distracted as her guest makes his way over to the mantle where the Harmons line up all of their most treasured family photos.

Something about the way he filters over them makes her skin prickle, but not in a bad way per se. If he really does know them so well, maybe he’s in one of them she’s failed to notice and he’s just looking for proof of his alibi. His fingertips dance over the edges of the frames, taking the time to soak in each picture with almost reverent respect, and he pauses as they ghost over a nondescript portrait of Ashley at her dance recital from two years back. She can’t see his face as he’s turned away, but she can only imagine what kind of expression he must be making, pondering down at the photos so lovingly lined up on display for the express purpose of exactly what he’s doing now.

Pagan perks his head up, perhaps sensing she’s come to a halt in the room and is gawking at him, and he pivots slightly in her direction with a question in his gaze.

“Would you be an absolute _doll_ and hang my coat for me, darling?” he asks, honey sweet, and his fingers are already working on the buttons of the thing before she can answer.

All Vanya can manage is a brusque nod as she takes the few steps towards him to collect it as he shrugs it off in favor of a cream and rose pink linen shirt underneath, and she’s desperately avoiding making eye contact for the moment. She doesn’t quite know how to feel about the way he’s looking at her, so insistently, almost affectionately. _Just stare at the floor like it’s the best thing you’ve ever seen. Or his shoes, they’re shiny._

Overcoat in hand now, she turns on her heel and exits the living room quickly towards the foyer, noting as she goes that the thing smells absolutely _heavenly_ and she hadn’t quite noticed it before when he was closer to her. Like jasmine and vanilla, and the heady smoke of vetiver incense, _intoxicating,_ and not at all what she would have expected _._ The fabric of this coat is expensive and there’s no tags inside the collar, so it’s probably bespoke, and on the breast is fastened an intricate ebony brooch in the delicate shape of a peacock. She runs her fingers over it, transfixed, and then hangs the coat on a free hook on the coatrack in the foyer before returning to Pagan in the living room.

When she comes back in he’s taken to studiously examining a particularly large photo frame that she recognizes without having to look twice. It’s one she looks at fondly every time she’s over which, right now, has been _six days a week_ most weeks. She and her mother are standing shoulder-to-shoulder behind Paul and Laura who have knelt down in front of them, hugging lovingly. They were so much younger then, all of them, the year before Laura had gotten pregnant with Ashley. It’s Mt. Rushmore in the background, or at least part of it. She can remember the trip, and that exact moment the four of them had clustered together for the photo. Laura had the whole big photo cropped for the picture frame so it would only show the four of them, much closer cut so only the important details remained for their viewing pleasure. One of the four of them was gone now, and Laura had always been furiously sentimental at the best of times, even before Vanya's mother Marina had passed away.

Something feels strangely wrong about seeing this man holding her family photo so close to his face, observing every detail with some kind of clarity like he’s made some grand connection. And then he looks up, eyes wide, lips parted like there’s words just there at the tip of his tongue.

“Vanya!” He says, like for all the world a weight has been lifted off his mind, and she tilts her head in question.

“Hm?”

“Oh Paul’s told me stories about you! I didn’t even realize, with your hair up, apron on… You look like a proper homemaker, you know…”

The pointed way he says things just jabs right at her, and she folds her arms combatively.

“What’s that supposed to mean? You’ve seen me before?” She asks, so badly wanting to add, _like a proper homemaker?!_

Pagan turns away again, setting the photo gingerly back in its place on the mantle, and begins to casually scroll through the rest of the line of photos as he speaks again.

“I’m a bit hurt you don’t remember, now that you mention it, _Miss Rotenberg_ ,” her last name sounds almost like a weapon, and almost like it’s supposed to make her feel more comfortable too, “Paul and Laura were great friends with your mother growing up, and when she brought you in the world the three of them practically all raised you together. And so it was only natural you stepped in to help raise their daughter when Ashley came around…”

He pauses again on another, smaller photo towards the back of the end of the row. One she hasn’t really noticed before. One from around two years ago, of when he started to go away for six weeks at a time. He lifts it so she can just see it over his shoulder, and she’s still reeling from what he’s said as she pads just a little closer to him and tries to see what he’s looking at. Clearly, he’s in the photo, and he’s wearing a garishly offensive fuchsia suit jacket that sticks out like a sore thumb even from this far away. His arm is thrown over Paul’s shoulder, and Paul looks so _proud_ to be standing beside him taking this selfie with him, wherever they are.

_Oh_.

“…So of course you came to that dance recital when they invited me along too. Do you really not remember when I came to visit two years ago or so? It wasn’t that long ago, really, or have I honestly mistaken you for someone else?” Pagan finishes as she’s just connecting the puzzle pieces herself, putting that timeline together in her head, “I remember you looking so lovely in a red dress or something of that ilk, and you were such a lovely conversationalist at dinner that night. I’ll chalk it up to time and distance, then.”

_OH._

Paul’s boss, _Pagan Min._ By name she knows him, and well, but she barely remembers that recital or that evening. That whole affair was a clusterfuck for her from start to finish, and all she can really remember is running late, ruining her makeup in the rain on the way into the building, apologizing profusely, and that Pagan must have sat at the end of the aisle in the auditorium quite far away from her. She’d been more occupied with getting photos and videos for Paul since he’d been too distracted sobbing over his beautiful girl up there on stage clumsily blundering her way through dances, and then sending them off to all his cousins and friends who Laura demanded she brag about their daughter to and—

“ _Uncle Pagan?!”_

Ashley comes tearing into the living room, fast as the wind, and before she can catch up to what’s going on, the nine year-old has launched herself into Pagan’s arms and nearly knocked the wind right out of the poor man. He hugs her tightly, laughing as she clings to his shoulders happily, and then she sees the searching hands, the ever-expectable scrabbling in search of hidden treasures in pockets. Ashley’s always been a greedy girl, and her father’s terrible at enabling her.

Pagan sets his big hand over Ashley’s two little ones as her hands fall over his shirt pocket and he shakes his head with a chuckle, setting her back on the floor and straightening up.

“Now now, you know better than to think I would come all this way and _not_ bring you something nice on my travels, Ashley,” he scolds lovingly, and Vanya finds herself moving to sit on the arm of the couch to keep close to the two of them.

From his shirt pocket he produces a little trinket for her, placed right into her eager open palms, and just like that she’s gone again, having received her boon. Vanya wants to scold her, wants to bring her back in and have her thank him for his generosity like a respectable child should, but before she can say anything Pagan has moved to the couch, and he sinks into the cushions gratefully not too far from where she’s perched on the arm of it.

“Of all the little things Paul has given that girl over the years, I often wonder if she keeps any of the gifts from my country. Well. I suppose they’re _all_ from my country if he’s bringing them back from his _business trips_ but…” he muses thoughtfully, eyes on her observantly once again.

“So you’re from Kowloon, right? You’re Paul’s boss?” Vanya asks, crossing her legs and trying to look anywhere but his eyes, trying to avoid the holes they’re burning into her.

“Very observant! I figured he didn’t speak much of me, since you didn’t seem to know who I was out there on the doorstep,” Pagan teases, steepling his fingers together in his lap and leaning back among the cushions, “I _was_ Paul’s employer. Until two months ago. And would like to rectify that. But, ah, water under the bridge. That’s what I’m here for…”

Much as she can’t seem to sit still under his studious gaze, she can’t be rude and just leave him alone to give herself any personal space. Anything she does now may reflect poorly on Paul, especially if he’s here to offer Paul his job back, as she gathers.

“So you… don’t _sound_ like you’re from Hong Kong,” she muses, and as soon as the words are out of her mouth she registers that this isn’t the most _sensitive_ of things to say.

Nerves, she’ll chalk it up to nerves.

“Oh, _so hai_ , you don’t _sound_ like you’re from Russia like your mother, Vanya, but what’s in a name or a birthplace, mm?” his lips curl into a sneer, baring straight white teeth, mocking her with a surprising spit of venom.

She’s offended him.

“I’m so sorry,” is all she can squeak out, and she’s on her feet again, _definitely_ ready to be out of this room with him now.

In an instant his demeanor changes once again, and he’s right back to casual conversationalist. All warm smiles and genial posture, legs crossed and fingers steepled in his lap once again.

“I spent my formative years in England, dear. My, you’re not used to meeting foreigners are you?” he drawls, and she can feel him rolling his eyes even as she turns away and makes for the kitchen.

“I’m going to make some tea…”

-

Out of sight of him, she can breathe again. All the air in that living room had turned icy cold in a heartbeat, and it had been all her fault. The only thing she can think as she sets herself to digging through their spice cupboard for some tea bags is that Pagan certainly has a way of unraveling someone right from the seams. It’s no wonder Paul used to come home looking so bedraggled, more and more every time he came to visit, probably slowly coming undone under the nicely manicured thumbnail of that flamboyant, frenetic peacock out there in the living room.

The kitchen is cool from the spring breeze blowing in from the backyard window. The clock above the sink reads nearly eleven, and god she’s glad time’s going by quickly now. She can hear Ashley somewhere upstairs running around, singing loudly to herself off-key as she so loves to do, and for a moment her day feels normal. She can almost forget about the disturbance in the other room, about her faux pas.

Vanya gets the water in the kettle and the stovetop lit underneath it, and just shakes her long black curls down when she feels eyes burning into her back, just in her peripheral. Her eyes sweep to the right just enough, just subtly enough to make it look like she hasn’t even noticed yet, and when she sees Pagan propped against the door jamb she nearly jumps out of her skin. He looks for all the world like he’s not at all intruding on her moment’s repose, hands jammed in the pockets of his maroon trousers, a little smirk playing at the laugh lines on his face.

“ _Shit_ don’t scare me like that, you’re so quiet,” she scolds, hand over her heart, gasping for breath as she slams the tin of Darjeeling down on the counter.

“Just coming in to offer my help!” Pagan smiles then, and he’s _right_ back to staring her down.

He never seems to stop doing that, and it’s just so damn unnerving that her hands start to tremble. If anyone else at all were here as buffer, she figures it might not be so bad. Maybe he’s just bad at being social with semi-strangers like she is, she figures. Maybe it’s his way of socializing, just observing and learning. If anyone else could just be here to take some of that attention away--…

_Fucking Paul!_

“Oh my god Mr. Min I’m so sorry, I forgot to call Paul!” Vanya gasps, stumbling suddenly for the home phone that’s staring her right in the face very near to Pagan’s waist on the kitchen counter.

Just as she reaches out to pluck it up off the receiver Pagan’s hand shoots out reflexively and he pushes her hand down, flattening it into the countertop before she can so much as brush her fingertips against the handset. Her heart leaps into her throat at the contact and she chokes on her breath. His hand is warm, and large, and _heavy_ as it covers hers and holds it down firmly, insistently.

She can’t breathe, and god he’s so _close_ she realizes, close enough that she can smell that incense and vanilla on him, and then his hand his gone, curled into his side like he’s been wounded. And then he hisses, like her skin is fire and he’s been burned. She withdraws a few steps away, meeting his brown eyes for the first time since he’s entered the house, and she can’t discern what she sees there behind his dark lashes.

“Terribly sorry,” is all he mutters, clearing his throat, “I only meant to say that it’s no worry at all, I’m sure he’ll be home soon enough anyhow, right?”

“T-Two o’clock…” Vanya says, and no more, because she’s not even sure there’s more to be said at the moment.

“Excellent, no worries at all. That gives me time to enjoy your hospitality and a nice pot of Darjeeling, and all will be right in the world I think,” he says, brightening with every word, and just like that she’s forgotten anything even happened between them.

“Right…” she gets out, stiffening up and turning away, heaving out a shaky breath and trying not to crumble.

Just as she gets her hand on the china cabinet door the garage door’s familiar grumble roars to life and she perks up, relief washing over her in waves. A quick look at the clock tells her it’s still far earlier than they’d said they’d be home, but she’s _far_ happier to hear them coming back early than she thinks she could ever be – and that’s saying something. Behind her, Pagan snorts through his nose, and she looks back over her shoulder just in time to see a haughty smirk fall off his face, something she clearly wasn’t supposed to see.

The Harmon family SUV’s engine rumbles into the garage, but the door doesn’t close again. They must just be here to stop in for something quickly, or drop something off. No matter, _thank god they’re back_.


	2. Little Burning Sun

Laura is the first one through the side door into the kitchen, humming to herself whatever tune she must have been listening to on the radio in the car. With the door left open Vanya can hear that the engine is still on outside – Paul must still be in the SUV or just getting ready to get out of it. In the time it takes Laura to cross the gap from the doorway to the island to deposit the armfuls of groceries she’s clutching Vanya has looked frantically between the two of them probably a hundred times. It seems she's so wrapped up in herself that she hasn’t noticed the extra body in her kitchen, and shockingly Pagan hasn't said a thing. 

In fact, he's still just standing there like he can’t care less, hands stuffed right back in the pockets of his trousers where they'd been before. She feels empowered by Laura’s presence in the kitchen, not quite as unsteady as she was moments ago when it had been just the two of them. 

“Hey Mrs. H, you're back early, _how convenient,”_  Vanya says pointedly, frustration scratching at the back of her throat at just how oblivious this woman can be. 

Pagan snickers under his breath and she throws a warning glare his way. 

“I sent you a text Van, didn’t you get it? We wanted to drop the groceries off before we went to Paul's appointment,” Laura says, head down, bustling this way and that to get things sorted, “don’t have a lot of time.” 

_Jesus Christ-_  

“ _Laura.”_  Pagan finishes Vanya's thought aloud, and even she’s startled by the firm projection in his voice. 

And Laura stops dead in her tracks, shakes her head like she’s heard a ghost. It's almost as though Pagan's voice resonates through the room, though it’s all but gone quiet as he simply stands there indignantly awaiting her recognition. She lifts her head then, and slowly turns to meet Vanya's eyes for a brief, brief moment, then onto Pagan's. Vanya watches as Laura's face lights up in sudden exuberant surprise, and then she’s as animated as can be, forgetting all about the pressing need to get back out to Paul and his appointment. 

“Oh! Oh God, what a surprise! Pagan!” She gasps, faltering a few steps towards him as if to shake his hand or hug him, but then she seems to remember her husband is in the garage, still waiting in the car, “ _Paul!_ Paul, honey! Hurry, guess who’s here?” 

Through all of this, Vanya can only watch in bewilderment. It really does seem like the Harmons have entirely forgotten about Paul’s ex-employer coming to visit, and she almost feels bad for the man. If he’s upset, he’s playing it off well as he simply stands in the middle of their kitchen with a wide smile on his face and mischief in his eyes. All the better, at least he’s not gawking at her any more. 

Laura has turned on her heel to go fetch Paul, practically tripping over herself to get out into the garage, but just as she gets behind herself the three of them catch sight of Paul at the same time. 

Or, rather, Paul catches sight of  _them,_ his arms loaded with the last of the bagged groceries his wife has forgotten in her frenzy to greet their apparently unexpected guest. Vanya searches his face for some kind of joy, some kind of  _s_ _omething_ , but Paul just  _blanches_ and caves in on himself, and in the silence of the room she can hear the thick audible click of a hard, unsteady gulp. In the next instant, almost in slow motion, his arms give in and all the food he’s hauling topples to the floor in heaps of crashes and splatters. Jars of beans go thumping down the steps behind him, and a fresh carton of eggs just  _disintegrates_  under the weight of the bag of apples that’s landed on top of it. 

She can hear Laura gasp sharply, and Pagan shifts a bit on his feet in response to Paul’s blatant shock, but Vanya’s eyes can’t leave Paul’s. He’s asking for help, staring straight through his guest and into some other, far-off place nobody else can touch, and then he’s off like a shot without a single word, stomping right over the groceries on the floor like they aren’t even there in the first place. He bumps shoulders hard with Pagan as he passes, almost like he’s meant to, and the man doesn’t even flinch in response. Just watches, curious, smiling knowingly. Laura makes to chase him, and Vanya has to hold her back, knowing it won’t do any good to cause more of a scene. 

Just like that he’s gone, like a bat out of hell has bitten him in the ass on its way past, and before she or Laura can step in to assume damage control Pagan turns on his heel and follows, murmuring something over his shoulder about taking care of things. 

The two of them are left dumbstruck in the kitchen to clean up the mess, neither sure what to say to the other. Too many questions, not enough answers to even start asking anything in the first place. Laura’s blue eyes are wide and bewildered, and Vanya is sure she looks much the same at the moment, though she may be quite a bit more curious than Paul’s wife to know just why he’d been so upset to see Pagan. 

Across the house she can hear hushed voices, Pagan and Paul trying not to devolve into shouting. They don’t sound happy, and there’s quite a lot of silence between some of their statements. _Words laden with history_ , she thinks, a history she doesn’t know about. Laura hands her a dustpan, and she stoops down obediently to the floor with it to hold it steady so she can help get some of the finer mess swept up. 

“... _really should come back to...”_  

Sounds like Pagan, nonchalant as ever. Once most of the debris is cleaned from the floor they can get to work mopping up the wet mess. She’s quick to get the mop and bucket from the utility closet just beside the pantry. 

“ _...in danger. Not again._ ” 

More like Paul. She’s not sure. Laura gets the water running into the bucket and she misses much of what’s said next. The squish of the mop is quiet enough to hear over as she starts working it across the messy floor. 

“ _People need you, De_ _Pleur_ _. You have unfinished business...”_  

In all this time she’s managed to forget all about the tea kettle, which has only just now started to whistle in its slow boil over the burner, and she’s startled enough to quickly forget she’s heard that strange  _nom de guerre_ again _,_ or whatever it may be. 

“ _Coming for me. Please don’t m---_ ” 

“Vanya, you can take care of the chicken, right? Hello?” Laura’s face comes into view right in front of hers, bringing her from her acutely focused squint down the hallway towards Paul’s den. 

“Oh. Uh. For what?” Vanya mumbles, blinking away the daze. 

“Food? You in there goofball? I’m sure Pagan’s starving after his long trip, and you make fantastic chicken like your mom used to. If you get it in the oven I’ll take care of the rest, okay sweetie?” There’s Laura’s charming smile again, always trying to win her over as if she isn’t obligated to do these things in the first place, “I’ll let you have next Friday off, and Saturday. You deserve it for all this.” 

A three-day weekend _does_  drive a hard bargain. It’s been a long time since she’s had any time to herself.  _Why not,_ maybe she’ll win both the men over and bridge their conflict with the power of her cooking...  _feh,_  ridiculous. It sounds like Paul and Pagan have stopped arguing down the hall, as she can’t hear a peep out of either of them. Laura seems to notice too, and with a wry smile in Vanya’s direction she bustles off in their direction, picking up a bottle of scotch from the shelf on the way.  _A peace offering_. 

- 

By the time their early dinner is on the table Vanya has done it all herself, and irritated doesn’t even begin to canvas how she’s feeling. It’s nearly three o’clock, and she’s been cooking since noon. She’s had to bust her ass in here and listen to the three of them out there in the living room drinking and bantering for nearly three hours, sharing anecdotes and tales of all sorts like they hadn’t all been shocked to see each other just a little while ago. Neither Paul nor Laura come in to check on her or offer help, not that she expects either of them to, but the thought would have been appreciated. It’s something she’s just learned to deal with over the years. All work and no recognition. At least they pay her bills... 

The conversations slowly become one-sided, and she hears less and less of Pagan Min’s charismatic British banter. It’s almost alarming to her to think she’s grown to enjoy hearing his voice so much in such a short span of time, but she chalks it up to the novelty of it all. 

“Hey amigos, dinner’s on,” Vanya pops her head around the archway into the living room, raising an eyebrow at Paul and Laura who have curled up together on one couch while Pagan sits quite delicately on the other. 

He almost looks  _uncomfortable_  watching the two of them be so affectionate with one another. Like he’s aching to see two people expressing their love. Like he’s used to being alone but he’s so consciously aware of just how much of an outlier he is at the moment. But as soon as she’s made herself known to the room he lights up like he’s glad to see her, and for the first time she’s almost flattered. She can understand where he’s coming from here, having to tolerate their clinginess and complete lack of boundaries. 

It’s then that she sees the bottle of scotch that Laura had grabbed earlier. Paul has it by the neck and he’s taking swigs right from the mouth of it, which can only mean that he certainly hasn’t been sharing with their guest. Pagan’s ever-observant gaze seems to trace hers, and a wistful smile plays at his lips. 

“You know, I’d love a glass of wine with dinner if you’ve got any,” he says, and she absolutely understands without a second thought. 

“Oh, for sure. I’ll grab a bottle, come on, everything’s on the table,” Vanya replies, almost pitying him. 

_Almost_. 

It takes Paul and Laura longer to un-stick themselves from each other and their self-absorbed conversation than it does for Pagan to rise from the couch and follow her, and when she’s gotten the wine and come back into the dining room he’s already seated as they’re just shuffling in together. Paul looks worse for wear, stress rooting in dark bags under his eyes that really hadn’t been there just this morning, but he’s doing a good job of hiding anything he might be feeling under a jovial exterior. He looks for all the world like he really is happy to see his old boss. 

She hasn’t asked him if he’s agreed to go back to work for Min, and she doesn’t want to poke that bear. Certainly not at the dinner table. Ashley has come downstairs, entranced by the smell of a freshly cooked early evening meal, and she’s staring down the steaming plates of food with wide, ravenous eyes. _Growing girl, growing appetite,_ the starving little thing _._  

“Made the Chicken Kiev like you asked, Mrs. H,” Vanya says as she takes her usual seat at the table, now seated across from Pagan who’s taken Ashley’s usual seat. 

He looks pleased with his full glass of wine, and as he lifts it he tips it towards her in thanks before taking a swig. At least she’s made someone happy today, if only a smidge. Laura hasn’t said a word, too transfixed with getting her plate full of meat and vegetables, and Vanya wonders whether she should be offended or whether she should know better by now. She may not cook dinner very often for them any more, but it’s not like she doesn’t know how this family operates. 

The Harmons are  _takers,_ not  _thankers_. Gratitude is not often in their vocabulary, at least not in a genuine way. Her face must sour, because she can feel Pagan’s strange, inquisitive gaze on her again. 

“Laura did you hear the girl?” he says abruptly, tilting his head oh so casually towards his hosts, “Are you going to thank the poor thing for slaving over a hot stove for hours for you?” 

_Oh._  

She can feel the heat blooming in her cheeks, and maybe it’s the wine that she’s started on with an empty stomach. It might be embarrassment, or a little flattery, but the indirect way he speaks of her sends such a strange tickle up the back of her psyche. He doesn’t look back to her, doesn’t even blink, wine glass still held aloft in that hand she suddenly remembers feeling so heavy pressing down on hers. 

“Oh, uh. Thank you, Van,” Paul replies before his wife can, and Laura grimaces with the smallest giggle. 

Laura is trashed. Dinner hasn’t even started, they haven’t even been home for four hours, and she’s already sloshed. The perfect housewife when she needs to be, until the moment Paul gets home and gets his hands on her. Vanya thinks, if she’s being honest with herself, that it’s the only way the two of them can tolerate each other any more – when they’re sober they bicker. When she’s sober she’s calling Ashley’s other  _uncles_  to fix the broken  _plumbing_ that never seems to get fixed no matter how often those men are over. Two months together hasn’t been the easiest stretch of time for either of them. 

Of course, they couldn’t have made it to their therapy appointment today anyway, not with their foreign friend showing up so unexpectedly. And apparently, they really, _genuinely_ had forgotten  _all about his visit,_  poor Pagan. 

“Oh, this is _Kiev?_  I wanted what your mother used to make though,” Laura says finally, breaking the companionable silence they’ve all fallen into to pick at their plates. 

“I beg your pardon?” Vanya’s nose twitches in agitation. 

“I think what Laura means to say, darling girl, is that the food you’ve prepared for us is  _wonderful_ , and you’ve been such a  _generously_  gracious hostess  _in their stead_  today,” Pagan says, finally turning back to look at her again. 

For the first time she finds that she doesn’t really mind the unfaltering gaze. He’s appraising her, and defending her all the same. Unlike anyone else wrapped up in this toxic social circle the Harmons have woven around her life, Pagan is an outlier and he can see right through their bullshit. It’s almost refreshing, having someone in her playing field for once. She doesn’t want to think about the way he’s flicking his lashes at her though, smirking those lips like he’s got something more to say that he can’t voice aloud. 

“Well. Thank you, Mr. Min. I appreciate the gratitude. I’m happy to do it,” Vanya gets out, and, _there_ , that’s a good, sociable response without too much implication or emotion. 

Pagan offers her a charming smile, and a little wink that just so blatantly says _oh, I understand you._  

Paul has to open his mouth and fuck everything up, then, and he slurs through the first word or two before his mouth catches up to his brain. 

“You could have called us to warn us Pagan would be here,” he argues, crossing his arms, and she wants to laugh at how childishly the words come out of the grown man’s mouth. 

“Really Paul? Haven’t quite had the time. I’ve done the best I can with an unexpected visitor,  _thank you._  Would have been nice if either of you had chosen to help with dinner instead of playing kiss and tell on the couch,” Vanya growls out his first name, nose crinkling, feeling the anger rise in her chest. 

It’s not always present, that ball of irrational, quick rage. Rarely does she feel herself become so hot-tempered like this. She couldn’t tell herself where it comes from, or where it goes, but here it is front and center churning in place like a tiny molten sun lighting a fire in her throat. Before she can stop herself she’s up out of her seat, too loud, too hasty, and it takes all the power left in her not to stomp her foot hard on the floor to get their rapt and undivided attention. 

“Now, now, let’s be civil,” Pagan raises his voice, holding his hands up in a peace offering between them, but the playful grin that reaches all the way up to the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes tells a different story. 

He’s enjoying this. It’s a show for him. She can tell by the way he goads her with his eyes, raising an eyebrow in a silent challenge, urging her to push that envelope just a little further, a little harder. How has she unraveled so quickly that she’s willing to risk embarrassing herself in front of a guest like this?  _Gracious hostess_  her ass. 

Paul’s jaw has fallen slack as he just stares up at her, not sure what to say, and he won’t even look over at Laura when she elbows him hard in the ribs looking for a response. Vanya’s pulse is thrumming in her ears, she feels drawn taut like a bowstring, pulled inexplicably tight by the presence of this foreign stranger throwing wrenches into every part of their day. She opens her mouth to say more, but suddenly her energy is leaving her again just as quickly as it’s flooded into her. She’s tense as can be, still drawn so inexplicably taut, but that rage is dying fast with no fuel to the fire, only awkward stunned silence. 

Laura finally pipes up, straightening up in her chair, pointy nose in the air with all the indignance she can muster. 

“Vanya, you’ve been terribly disrespectful,” _is she serious? “_ And I think it’s time you head home. We’ll talk Monday about repercussions.” 

There’s no way she’s serious. She’s almost thirty, not a child to be scolded. In fact, she  _nannies_  Laura’s child. There’s no way... 

“Oh _grow the fuck up,"_  Vanya spits, holding onto that little spark of anger left in her, liking how it feels sitting against her collarbones, fluttering in her pulse, “Can we talk Monday too about Ashley’s Uncles, yeah?” 

She’s very well aware of how ridiculous she’s behaving, and in the moment she hasn’t got a shred of decency to care. Something’s been set right off in her, and maybe it’s the wine still, or maybe the mental gymnastics she’s had to jump through today. Or maybe it’s the the dizzying side-effect of Pagan’s gaze, which, coincidentally, is locked on her hard and steady once again. 

There’s a fire in his eyes that takes her aback, and she finds herself stumbling back somewhat in surprise. 

“Shit, I’m sorry, I’m being so rude right now,” she finds herself saying, deflating again just as quickly as she’d preened. 

_“Oh,_ _d_ _úshé_ , I  _like_  you...” he says, a grin curling at his lips in such a wicked way, like he’s just been slapped and  _enjoyed_  it, “They told me you walked here this morning - let me walk you home, it’s getting dark out and these two are too far gone to be of any help to you...” 

Much as she wants to find a reason to say no, she really can’t. All her earlier transgressions aside, he’s been nothing but courteous to her, and she’s got to hand it to him, he’s quite good at making a girl feel  _special._  All she can do is nod her acceptance, and Pagan is on his feet in a heartbeat, casting a warning glare at Paul and Laura who have done nothing but glower and gloat since the moment they’ve triumphantly decided to cast out their ward for the night. 

- 

The moment her feet hit the grass on the front lawn she wants to throw herself into it bodily and just  _breathe_  and ground herself, but she’s brought into reality by Pagan’s presence beside her as he tugs on his black overcoat. On the early evening breeze she catches a light whiff of that lovely perfume of his jacket, and her throat catches. She shouldn’t let herself feel this way, certainly not about Paul’s  _boss_ of all people. 

Pagan stays close to her as they start off down the sidewalk, treading in silence for a while as he lets her collect her thoughts. It’s nice to have someone with strides long enough to match her own, and she wonders if he’s put off by her height as most men – and women, truly – are. 

“So, that was fun,” Pagan says, and she can’t help but bark out a laugh in response. 

The whole day has turned into something of a sitcom, something she hopes she won’t ever have to repeat. 

“Fun is... a word for it, yeah. Thanks for having my back, Mr. Min,” she manages, suddenly feeling like she’s being far too formal with him. 

“Pagan. Please, none of that formality. I meant to correct you before,” he retorts, cracking a grin, and she rolls her eyes, “And really, it was my pleasure. You’re a lovely young—a lovely woman, Vanya.” 

_Oh._  

He’s walking just close enough that his knuckles brush against hers as their hands swing past each other, and suddenly it sinks in. Fuck, he’s making a move on her. Well. Does she like this? Does she want this? Is he even attractive? She takes a moment to peer over at him, taking her focus off of the sidewalk to examine his profile. He’s not exactly un-handsome, per se, but maybe not her type. But he’s older, _much_  older. Paul’s age, if not older than that by a few years. Easily could be her father. And with a sudden, startling jolt of heat through her, she realizes that  _that’s just fine_. 

_Oh no. Play it cool, idiot._  

_“So,_ Pagan... Hong Kong? Paul never really talks about what he did over there. What do you do there, in Kowloon?” She asks, trying hard to change the subject, trying hard not to think about the strange little Pagan-shaped needle trying to work its way under her skin. 

He just smiles obliviously, and either he knows exactly what she’s feeling or he doesn’t care in the slightest. 

“Oh, just financing. Business jargon doesn’t suit you, dear. Let’s try on a different conversation for size.” 

_...OH_  

He can read her like a book, and it’s jarring the way he somehow knows how to work his fingers right up underneath the buttons he should be just  _pushing_ instead. Like he’s trying to just lift them off instead of press them, and expose whatever’s underneath. He’s trying to figure her out, and damned if she’s not going to make it harder for him. 

“No, I’m really interested I think,” She presses, and delights in that little twitch of his eyebrow when he doesn’t get what he wants out of her straightaway. 

“Desk jobs, money, business deals. Suits, ties, calculators,  _plenty_ of boring, long meetings in stuffy board rooms, Vanya,” Pagan drawls, rolling his eyes, and she can hear the irritation punctuating some of his words, trying not to break through. 

He wants to play this game with her, but she’s got her own game to play now, like it or not. 

“Oh, board rooms? Are you a CEO? Was Paul high up in the food chain?” 

She can feel the fire prickling under her skin again, but now it’s a new kind of fire. One she can play with, one she can mold. It’s not a hot, round sun but a little licking flame, ready to be cast where she pleases. What has she become that this man she barely knows has drawn such a woman out of her? 

“Vanya...” Pagan stops abruptly in the middle of the sidewalk, eyebrows furrowed, “Don’t tease me.” 

“I beg your pardon sir?” She catches up to him in little but half a step, and lets her hands rest at her sides, just within his reach, “Just trying a conversation on for size! Or did you want to move on to flirting like you seemed so eager to do?” 

“Jesus, woman, you didn’t even blink,” he says breathlessly, pleasantly surprised by her forwardness. 

What she does next happens on impulse, surprising even her. This close to him, she can catch a whiff of that pleasantly homely incense on his jacket, and right now she just wants to bury her face in it and carry herself away on the smell of it. Instead she folds her hands behind her back and leans in close enough to the nape of his neck that she’s sure he can feel the ghost of her breath there, and she  _inhales_ deeply, eyes fluttering shut. She could lean in and kiss him here, feel his pulse under her lips if she really wants to, but no, that's decidedly  _too_ much.

This near to his wine-flushed skin she can smell his aftershave on him, adding a touch of spice to the pleasant fragrance. Pagan breathes in sharply and stands stock-still until she pulls away, and when she meets his gaze he’s come apart. His eyes are wide pools of dilated black, taken by surprise and somehow still pleasantly _bothered_ by her. Vanya realizes  _sniffing_  men isn’t something normal people just  _do,_  and certainly Pagan shares this belief, but she pins him with her unfettered gaze, challenging him with her eyes. 

“What? Maybe you shouldn’t go through the effort of smelling so _lovely,_ ” she grins, daring him to retort. 

And he doesn’t, and she nearly loses the battle herself when he concedes, the way he seems to resign to his excitement. 

“You may very well be the death of me, girl,” Pagan says breathlessly, perturbed, and before anything more can happen he’s off down the sidewalk without another word. 

She follows behind at a distance now, content to let him take the lead. She’s pushed the envelope enough on too many occasions tonight, why ruin a good thing where it stands? 

Soon enough they’ve come to her doorstep and she’s never been so glad to see the glow of her own porch light. Pagan lets her climb the stoop first, and as she unlocks the door he waits patiently off to the side. She’d have thought he’d have headed off home knowing she was safe, probably wanting to crawl into bed and sleep off his long trip. For a moment she entertains the thought that perhaps he’s taken her fleeting interest in him as an invitation to _come in_  for the evening, but before she can let those thoughts get away with her she shoves them down into the recycle bin for later use. No time for those kind of thoughts now, with him standing right there so patiently. 

“Thanks for getting me home safe—oh,” she says, gasping as he takes her hand into his and lifts it into the lamplight for inspection. 

“Thank _you_ for the amenable evening,” Pagan responds, pressing the smallest, fluttering kiss to her knuckles, and her stomach flops over. 

_Well that’s a thing right there..._  

She wants to ask him what the hell this whole day has become, and what the hell is wrong with her, but then his phone rings loudly in his pocket, aptly startling both of them enough to make him drop her hand abruptly. 

“Ah, Paul. I should take this.” 

“You, uh, have a great night,” Vanya gets out before he picks up his phone, and sees herself inside as he turns away down the stairs and treads off the front porch. 

The moment the door is shut she falls back against it, scrubbing her hands through her hair and over her face in frustration. 

_What the fuck was today?_  It’s only seven o’clock by the timepiece on her DVR, but it feels so much later than that. She’s only been up for a little over twelve hours, but for all the commotion of today it feels like she’s been through war and back. What hell a little wrench in the plans can wreak on her body... 

- 

She’s up in bed in no time, and she can still hear Pagan somewhere down around the front sidewalk, which means he must be deep in conversation with Paul about something that couldn’t be bothered to wait until he got home. She’s too tired to get up and close her bedroom window, and, shit, his voice is pleasant to listen to anyhow. Maybe if she’s lucky it’ll follow her into her dreams... 


	3. Dúshé

Pagan can only watch from the corner of his eye as Vanya slips, stunned, into her house. The moment her front door is shut between them he can breathe. She can too from the other side of it, he’s sure, but for different reasons. He could see spitfire in her brown eyes when she'd stared him down, such a strange mixture of fear, respect, and… _lust?_ The lust makes him uneasy, but not in a bad way. 

_No, decidedly not._

But this isn’t a side effect he’s expected.  _She sniffed him, for Christ's sake._ She'll be a handful. But there’s nothing to be done about it now. He needs to follow through, needs to get the ball rolling. If he’s to jump through these hoops just to pull off one simple task, he damn well better get it done and done right. 

He hears but doesn’t feel words leaving his lips as he lifts the phone to his ear, had seen the name on the screen of his phone that read _Paul_ as he answered, but everything is just nuanced detail and safety nets. Bits and pieces of cover story to canvas this wicked, twisted thing in case she bothers to stay and ask questions. Lies. All of it. When he's sure he hears Vanya fall into her bed through her open window upstairs  _as expected_ , he drops the act. 

“Gary,” his voice drops low so she won’t be able to make out what he’s saying if she’s eavesdropping, “listen, I'll be- yes. Yes, Fleming Field I know. Oh for fuck's sake  _stop_ pretending to be Paul. She can't hear you. No, I don’t care if you stay on the line or not. Yes, I  _did_  tell you that in our little briefing this morning. Now  _hush up_.” 

He can hear Gary putting up a complaint on the other end. Pagan jams his thumb against the screen, abruptly ending the call as forcefully as he can on a touchpad phone, and takes a deep breath. There’s something strangely absurd about what he’s about to find himself doing, and dealing with that  _bullshit_  isn’t going to help any, frankly. 

“No, no, it’ll be alright, are you sure? Are you in any danger? Paul...” Pagan pauses, long enough he almost forgets there’s nobody to respond. 

He only needs to convince Vanya, not himself. She’s still up, she has to be. It’s only been a matter of minutes since he’s heard the mattress creak under the weight of her settling into it. She’ll hear him, she’ll come to investigate. He may not know the girl well but wouldn’t any sane person want to know what was going on in such a situation? 

 _Feh_ _,_ sane?  _Sniffed him, the wildling!_  

“Paul, answer me! Oh— _yes_ is everything alright?!” He almost snickers at his own concern. 

 _How ridiculous_. He’s simply standing oh so calmly on this blasted woman’s front porch shouting into the early evening air, startling her neighbors no doubt. And for what benefit? How has he talked himself into this? 

But she’s not stirring, and he’s not got much time. 

“Call the police.  _Call the fucking police Paul._  No,  _I don’t care."_  

 _There,_  louder. That should do it. He’s got the voice for it, he can command a room. How about commanding—well, whatever this is? 

No, nothing. She’s either dead asleep up there or she really mustn’t care in the slightest. 

 _Or she’s up there getting off right now, oh so bothered by the_ smell of you _, Pagan._

No. No, no. 

Inadvertently he slams his fist against the siding of her house, just beside the front door. It’s a knee-jerk response to the uncomfortably intrusive mental image that he finds himself trying to force out through some means or another. 

Vanya gasps, just loud enough he can hear it from the upper floor, through that single open window above his head. 

 _That’s one way to do it..._  

And so he pounds his fist again, this time on the door, and this time he picks up the shouting again. Can’t hurt. 

“Yes, Paul, I’ll keep her safe, I’ll get her. Please call the police  _now_ Paul, this is  _urgent_ , you’re in  _danger_ , I’ll take  _care_  of Vanya for you!” 

And with each feverish rise of his voice he punctuates with a louder knock. For emphasis, he thinks. Always an artistic flair, even if only for his own benefit. Certainly nobody else is around to appreciate this one-man show... 

 _"The fuck?!”_  

There she is, her anxious, bleary exclamation of confusion from one floor up. And so he takes to knocking frantically with both hands then, quite frankly tired of yelling into thin air to nobody in particular. No use making any more of a fool of himself than need be. He pounds and pounds, shoulders almost aching with the urgent force, until suddenly the door pulls away from his hands, inwards to the dark interior of her home. 

“Pagan?” Vanya murmurs from the shadows, sounding as disgruntled as he would expect her to be. 

No time for bleary confusion and gawking... 

Pagan muscles his way through the door the moment she’s given him access, much to Vanya’s protest, and as soon as he’s cleared the threshold he slams the door shut behind him. He stands firmly between it and the woman, more to assert himself than to keep her from going anywhere. 

“Listen to me. Before you speak, listen to me  _I am not going to hurt you_. You are in _t_ _errible_  danger, Vanya,” he says, playing up the intensity in his face as he knits his brows together and juts his chin forward. 

The alarm in her features is real, is absolutely palpable. He’s not sure whether she’s afraid of _him_  or of what he’s saying to her, but he supposes that at the moment that doesn’t quite matter. This part is crucial, the getting-her-to-listen part. So far, so good. She’s stock-still and groggy-faced, was probably half-asleep moments ago when he’d been on her porch yelling into the night by himself for no good reason. 

“Paul’s life is at risk.  _Your_  life is at risk. He’s asked me to take you somewhere safe until he can get things sorted out. I need you to come with me,” Pagan continues, adding “ _now."_  

 _“What_?” Vanya croaks out, scrubbing at her face, “You try’nna come upstairs?” 

She’s sleepier sounding than he’d thought. She’s not catching up. 

“Vanya. No. Wake up dear. Stay with me,” He snaps his fingers in front of her eyes, watches her go cross-eyed trying to follow his hand across her field of vision, “we need to leave.” 

She wobbles on her feet, and he knows he’s not going to catch her if she falls asleep standing up, and a sudden air of determination comes over her like a storm. He’s almost uncomfortable in the shadow of it. 

“Hang on wait. Leave? Where are we going?” Vanya says, clarity slowly easing into her features, “wait what?” 

“For fuck’s sake, girl, do you not have a sense of urgency? Come on!” 

Pagan’s hands snatch out and he attempts to grasp at her shoulders, tries to take her and shake her awake, maybe just drag her with him right out the door and off to where he needs her to go. But then she shrieks defiantly and tears away from him with a surprising amount of torque, throwing up her hands in defensive poise. 

Ah, yes,  _this_ is why he’d wanted to pull this entire convoluted stunt in the first place. He’d heard from Paul that she was a firecracker. He’d almost forgotten that there were situations that couldn’t be solved using physical manipulation or political status. 

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on,” Vanya says as she stands her ground, but he notes that she doesn’t put any distance between the two of them. 

 _Foolish_. Either she trusts him too much, or not enough. If she really thought she were in any danger, she’d have been back several yards away from him by now. 

“Vanya. Relax. Well, not entirely. Just enough.  _Fuck_ , listen to me. How much do you need to know to get you to walk out the door right now?” Pagan asks, and Jesus Christ. 

He’s bargaining with the girl. Honest to whatever god she prays to, he’s fucking bargaining with her. Is this what he’s stooped to already? 

- 

As it turns out, the only thing Vanya had needed to know to get her dressed and out the door was that Paul had personally asked him to deliver her to safety. The fact that he’s lying through his teeth is arbitrary, as is the rest of it to her, apparently, as now she’s curled up in the back seat of the taxi he’s called for, simply watching the world go by out the window. She hasn’t said much at all in the half an hour they’ve been in the car together. She’s packed no bags, as he rushed her so urgently to leave. No matter, an easy solution he can fix when they arrive. 

The silence is stifling, but all the same Pagan is glad to have a moment to his own thoughts. She’s just within reach in the cramped cab, her long legs curled up under her on the seat, and this close to her he notes that he can smell her. 

Not her perfume, or deodorant, or toothpaste, no. Just her mussed-up unbrushed just-got-startled-out-of-bed hair, natural scent. And for a fleeting moment he understands how she must have felt when she’d made such a big deal out of the same damn thing. 

 _She might like a little company on that side of the cab, Pagan_. 

His fingers twitch, he almost,  _almost_ reaches out and touches her across the seats, and then he’s fisting his hands into the fabric of his trousers with an uncomfortable hiss through his teeth. 

“Where are we going?” Vanya asks out of the blue, bringing him out of his sorry repose. 

She sounds like the noise he’s made has brought her out of some deep thought. 

“I thought you’d gone catatonic over there,” Pagan responds, unable to make himself look over to check on her, “We’re on our way to Fleming Field Airport.” 

Vanya straightens up, he can see her shift out of the corner of his eye. The window, yes, look out the window. As soon as he looks at her he’s done for, the way his mind seems to be working tonight. The world blurring by in the pitch black of the night makes him tired, as if he wasn’t already, but there’s so much to do before he can sleep. 

“Airport? Pagan what’s going on? I thought this was just a trip to the police station,” She says, a subtle edge of worry lining her voice. 

“You told me all you needed to know was _why_ we were leaving, and I told you, and you came,” He clarifies, smirking to himself, “any assumptions made on your part are solely your problem, dear girl.” 

“Seriously, what’s going on?” Vanya presses, taking none of his guff. 

And why would she? She’s a smart girl, after all. He hasn’t forgotten that little game she played with him on their moonlight stroll to her house. 

“As I told you, Miss Rotenberg, Paul Harmon and his family are in immediate danger, and Paul has asked me to personally escort you to safety. This means Fleming Field Airport, where I’ve been  _instructed_ to go,” Pagan says, rolling his eyes as heavily as he can through his words. 

He pinches the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes for just a moment to stifle the sudden surge of irritation he truly doesn’t want to latch onto, and when he opens them again he’s face to face with wild black curls and angry brown eyes—far too close for comfort. 

“ _What’s_ going  _on_ , Pagan?” Vanya spits, staring him right down the bridge of her soft nose at him. 

“ _Jesus_  woman!” He gets out, scrabbling to press back into the seat to get away from her predatory gaze, “What’s wrong with you?!” 

There’s that same fierce glint in her eye he’d first seen at the dinner table over Paul and Laura’s temper tantrum, only he finds it’s twice as exhilarating to be on the receiving end and in all the  _wrong_  ways when she’s  _this_  close to him. Practically breathing down his neck. It’s going straight to his trousers. She notices. 

 _She notices._  

 _“_ I’ll tell the driver you’re kidnapping me,” Vanya threatens, falling back into the seats, graciously giving him room to breathe. 

“By all means, open up the little shutter and tell him! I don’t think that’s in your best interest,” Pagan spits, and he has to cross his legs to keep the blood flow steady down south. 

Thank heavens she’s had the decency to give him space, at least. With a resigned sigh, he pulls his burner phone from his pocket and goes flicking through the messages he and Gary have exchanged over the past day or so specifically for this whole  _cover story_. For questions just like these. It would be so much simpler just to answer the woman’s questions outright, but that’s not his  _thing_. It won’t have the same sense of  _urgency._  

And so he finds exactly what he’s been looking for. A photograph he’d asked Gary to dig up from an old conversation with Paul from months ago. Some nondescript Kyrati man, muddied and bloodied, strapped to a metal gurney. One of the Golden Path, if he recalls correctly,  _someone who had come after A_ _jay_ _way back when_. Paul’s own handiwork, which he finds ironic, given the repurposed use of the photo. 

Wordlessly, Pagan offers the ever-impatient spitfire girl his burner phone, the image on full-screen. She recoils like the device has singed her fingers, but he presses on, staring her down until she takes it up in her hands and really  _looks_ at it. 

“The fuck is this?” she asks, hushed,  _awed_. 

“That, _d_ _úshé_ , is what happens to people like Paul when they make bad deals with wrong people,” he says, matter-of-factly. 

 _Viper_ of a girl... 

“ _God_ was this torture? Or murder? Oh my god he’s been  _castrated_?!” Vanya retches, audibly, and all he can pray is that she chooses to vomit in the other direction if at all. 

“All of the above. Paul made a rather _unsavory_ enemy in Kowloon near the end of his tenure with my business. He lost somebody a lot of money, and that somebody is apparently out for blood. This is... was... Duyi,  _yes,_  that was his name. One of Paul’s closest partners there,” Pagan explains, “The other man to take the fall. So now you see-” 

Vanya’s hand is on his bicep suddenly, gripping him through his coat with a vice-like snare of long nails. He winces in surprise, interrupted from his musings, and gawks at her expectantly. 

“ _Oh_ that’s why you’re here?! That’s why he got fired and came home. And why he didn’t want to go back to work, he felt safer back overseas here...” She utters with such urgent clarity, and he’s not sure she’s even speaking to him so much as herself, “Oh god, and that’s... They must want both his daughters as payment then...” 

Vanya shudders, her hand falling away from his arm, and Pagan’s face blanches. Has he heard her correctly?  _Both_ of Paul’s daughters? He can conjure up the mental picture of that little blond spoiled brat held aloft in De Pleur’s arms, surely enough, but he’s never heard the man mention a second daughter. But there’s a chilling discomfort in Vanya’s eyes that snaps him back to the here and now and he presses for answers, noting as he peers over her shoulder that they’re pulling into the airport around the private entrance just now as instructed. 

“Vanya, I’m not following you,” Pagan says, raising an eyebrow at her. 

“I wondered why Paul would care enough to have someone sent for me. This is all crazy,” Vanya pauses, taking a deep breath, “He’s my dad.” 

Oh. 

 _Oh no._  

 _Shit no, fuck. Fuck_. This changes things. Not terribly for the worse, but certainly things have gone awry in this best laid plan of his. Things were so bloody simple, too, and then she had to open her fucking mouth. Pick up the girl, who he  _only_ knew simply  _mattered_ to Paul, given their close history, bring her to Kyrat long enough to goad De Pleur into  _listening_  to him, and send her back. Simple, easy, done. A little flourish on the way for flair and feasibility, cover story if anything, but...

 _Not this._  

He’s staring at her, straight through her, maybe. Finally focusing in on her soft face, now only able to see that widow’s peak hairline, the shape of that nose so  _glaringly_ like her father’s. Brown eyes – maybe her mother’s, who knows, he hasn’t met the woman – that just  _scream_  ‘ _Good evening_ , Pagan,  _how fucking dense are you that you stared the two of them down side by side and didn’t see Paul Harmon Junior here?!’_  

 _Well._  

 _No_ , she doesn’t look like her father. Not now that he really pays attention, now that she’s tilting her head and studying him right back inquisitively, perhaps trying to process  _why_ exactly he’s just silently gawking at her in abject horror. But he’s done a lot of that tonight – just staring at the poor woman trying to figure her out. Her hair is curlier than Paul’s, though just as wild and coiffed, blown away from her face like it grows that way save for a few coils that hang over her cheekbones. She's generously freckled, and her face is heart-shaped. It looks nicer on her than that strange jaw-line Paul has. 

 _It would look nicer covered in_ _lovebites_ _, Pagan._  

 _“_ Paul’s fucking daughter?!” Pagan barks out like a cough, louder than he’s meant to, and truly he hasn’t meant to shout. 

He’s simply shaken to bits by these horrid thoughts that squeak their way in at the most inopportune time. Certainly he’d thought he’d be in for a stern talking-to from De Pleur over dinner when all would be said and done in a month or two, and Vanya would be right back in America again. Now-… now he wasn’t sure he’d make it through this ordeal alive knowing what he knew about their connection. 

“I don’t think he knows that  _I_ know. Laura doesn’t know. My mom raised me as a single mother, and they’ve all told me my ‘father’ was never in my life,” Vanya says, “I guess Paul and Marina had a fling late into college, when he was just starting to get serious with Laura. They never told anyone, and he kept on dating Laura and never mentioned it again.” 

 _Oh_ , how he understands that ache in a way. And god, how it almost hurts to think of Vanya’s mother, single and alone,  _just like Ishwari_... 

The cab stops abruptly outside an outlying hangar on the edge of the airport property, far away from the main terminals and pesky security checks. She still hasn’t questioned  _where_ they’re going from the airport, and if she won’t pester him about it he’s not keen to bring it up. Once they’re on the plane, anything is fair game. But until they’re in the air, the less risky information the better. Surprisingly, Vanya is up and out of the taxi with no complaints, seemingly grateful to get some fresh air and stretch her legs. In fact, she’s the first one to approach the private jet that's waiting for them just outside the hangar. 

“ _Wow_ , did you fly in on this?” She asks over her shoulder, “I guess you  _would_ have the money...” 

The nerve of this woman, really. Absolutely no couth whatsoever... 

“Please, for your fucking father’s sake just get in the damn thing so we can get some rest and move on with our lives,” Pagan says, perhaps harsher than he’s meant to, but miraculously she complies. 

“Where are we going?” Vanya asks, and stops in her tracks, only yards from the wing of the small jet. 

 _Really_? Now? 

“Elsewhere, Vanya. Hurry along. Please.” 

“No, Pagan, not this shit again,” she growls, growing dangerously serious. 

And there’s that spitfire in her eyes again, he’s almost grown to expect it. He best not poke the bear, not now. 

“Please, darling, I’ll explain when we’re on our way. Need I remind you of our good friend? Duyi? And the others I didn’t show you? Would you like to put me in the position that I become the one to deliver the news back to Paul that his daughter has been caught and slain by these _manhunters_?” Pagan says sardonically, a challenge dripping from every question, “Because I assure you,  _they’re coming_. I’m taking you to the safest place I can, but you need to  _trust me_. _”_  

However he gets this out, manages to put together some string of convincing bullshit, it’s apparently enough. The poor lass takes this to heart and seems to buckle at the knees at the consideration that she may not return home to her father, nor have a father to return home  _to_ if she can’t listen to simple commands. It’s enough to get her up the stairs and into the cabin of the jet without another word, never once looking back at Pagan to see if he’s following her. 

- 

The moment the cockpit is sealed and all is in order, Pagan can finally breathe. And, consequently, he can also feel every brick and stone of today’s events laid atop him like a mound of exhaustion, weighing him down in a sluggish fog. And so he finds himself sprawled out almost immediately in the most comfortable looking seat he can find in the small cabin, feet kicked up and arms thrown over his face to block out the interior lights. Maybe now he can get some damn sleep, and Vanya will be placated into her own silent slumber elsewhere. 

Of course, speak of the devil, the moment they start to taxi out to the runway, he can hear her padding across the floor and sitting across from him in the opposite seat. Irritation bristles at his throat and he has to cough to clear it away, trying to remain calm. Maybe she just wants to be comfortable  _over here_ instead of literally anywhere else. Maybe she’s come to stare at  _him_  for a change while he sleeps, who knows? 

“Pagan,” Vanya says, insistently. 

 _Oh, for fuck’s sake._  

 _“What?”_  

 _“_ I’m on the plane. The least you can do is tell me where we’re going? Are you taking me back to Kowloon?” 

She can’t be serious. 

He opens one eye, peering down his nose at her with extreme skepticism, and when she persists with her staring he rolls his eyes and sits up in his seat, crossing his legs. 

“For Christ’s sake, girl, would I drag you back into the lion’s den?” He asks, “They’d tear you apart the moment we got to Hong Kong.” 

“Well I thought you’d need to get back to your business or whatnot, but  _excuse me_ for making rash assumptions,” Vanya rolls her own eyes, pushing right back at him. 

“We’re going to Kyrat,  _d_ _úshé_ _,”_ Pagan says, frankly tired of this charade altogether. 

“...where?” 

“ _Jesus_ , get some god damn sleep woman!” 

Vanya recoils as if she’s been slapped, and for a brief moment he wants to apologize, but he’s done no wrong. She’s barked up the wrong tree and she’s going to have to deal with the blowback now if she thinks she can push his buttons. They have a long journey ahead of them, and this little game is only just beginning to run its course. There will be plenty of time for questions, just _not right fucking now._  

Pagan closes his eyes once again when she doesn’t respond right away, and leans his head back against the seat as he wills sleep to come to him. 

“Du-sheh, what’s that mean?” 

Her voice is _terribly_ close to his face once again, her breath almost gusting across his ear, and when he opens his eyes she’s  _right_ there. Fearlessly close, within biting distance yet again. He’s prepared for it this time, and he doesn’t startle. 

“ _Viper_ , girl. It means viper, and  _my_ you are a  _fierce_  one, but _p_ _lease_  fucking stop doing that,” he almost laughs in exasperation, glaring at her, “ _Why_ do you do that?! Do you think it’s funny, getting in my personal space when my eyes are closed?” 

Vanya sits back down in resignation, turning over her newfound knowledge in her head. She doesn’t apologize, doesn’t flinch. Good god, she’s going to be more than a handful on this flight, he knows it. He’s dug himself a deeper hole than he can ever properly climb back out of, and now it’s far too late. 

“What are you going to do then? How long is our flight?” Vanya asks after a long, uncomfortable moment, and he sighs – hard. 

“Whatever I damn well please, Vanya. Get some sleep. _I mean it,”_  He tacks on, mostly to emphasize that he’s absolutely finished talking with her. 

She seems to get the hint, and he watches languidly as she slinks off to the other side of the cabin once again, silent and embittered. 

- 

When they’ve reached cruising altitude he knows he won’t make it the whole flight without a little help. Left alone with his thoughts, he’s fallen into something of a terrible spiral of rather concerning thoughts that cycle between something of lust, concern, and genuine exhaustion. Concern for his current situation, held hostage by the woman he’s, well, _holding_ hostage in a way. Exhaustion for all the expectable reasons. And lust, well... 

There’s Vanya, laid out on the long bench along the side of the cabin up ahead, wild black curls strewn about her, and her hands folded so calmly on her stomach. She’s asleep, or at least she’s trying to sleep. Her eyes are shut, and for once she’s peaceful enough that Pagan can observe her without the fear that she’ll leap up and bite him if she catches him. And just the sight of her like that makes every inch of him _itch_ beneath his flesh in a way he hasn’t in years. Like he’s caught fire under his skin and nothing will sate it. 

 _Like she just needs to come over and give a good scratch, Pagan._  

Ah, and then there’s these fucking  _monstrosities_  of passing thoughts that have started wriggling their way into the forefront of his mind at any given moment, ever-present enough to alarm him greatly. They’re almost enough to dismantle his generally impressive impulse control. And they are, consequently, why he finds himself fishing in the inner pocket of his black wool coat for the little baggie of the  _good stuff_. Just enough to take the edge off, just enough to blur the hours together for a little while. 

He’s so good at hiding it, she’ll never know he’s blown out on the stuff if he just does a  _l_ _ittle_ at a time... 

Just a little dust on the pinky nail,  _enough to take the edge off, and..._  

When it hits him, he feels the flush of it like a pleasant ripple through him. It washes out that otherworldly itch that’s been prickling under his flesh, but in its wake he finds he’s even more bothered than before. It must be something about the taboo of it all, now knowing who she is and what she means to someone else. Would he really have cared several hours ago if she’d have looked at him twice? 

 _If she’d have_ _leaned_ _in to his throat and smelled him? So close, close enough to kiss and bite and grab?_  

Ah, but this time he entertains the thought. Holds onto it for just long enough as he glances her way that he feels the old familiar twist of arousal spike in the pit of his stomach. Her chest has begun to rise and fall with the steady rhythm of sleep. She’s nothing more than something to be admired here and now, a pretty little peaceful thing laid out on the cushions. 

 _A pretty little thing who’s interested in you, Pagan._  

The zipper of his trousers is cutting into his erection. How has he gotten so carried away? 

Fuck. Enough of this. He’s got to get this sorted before she wakes up. 

He’s on his feet in an instant, taking care to brace himself for the inevitable head rush of standing so quickly, and in the next he’s rushing off to the bathroom at the front of the cabin, gripping at himself through his trousers. The moment the door is shut and he’s sure he’s got it locked behind him he finds himself fumbling everything down to his knees, sitting on the edge of the sink for some stability as his legs are far too shaky to stand up in such a cramped space. 

His erection  _aches_ with need, and it’s been so long since he’s even bothered to touch himself that it’s almost foreign at first for him to even be staring down at the rigid arch of his own cock. But then all he can picture is that pretty little freckled face, and he’s lost to himself, pushing into his own tight fist, eyes squeezed shut as his lips part in a ragged gasp. 

 _Christ_  it’s been so long, he’s almost forgotten the sensation, how to please himself. Soon it’s as though his entire body is thrumming with purpose, tied down that one point of contact. He can almost picture her hand in place of his if he tries, and  _god_  it’s almost better this way, bucking his hips up off the counter feverishly, fucking his own hand like he’s desperate. He bites down on his lip, trying to choke back the moan that ekes out of his throat as he drags his thumb over the sensitive tip of himself, gathering the pre-come that’s already begun to well up there. 

But oh, his hand is far too dry to get off in. Not enough to really sell it for him, and so he doubles over and spits in his hand, breathing hard to catch his breath in his ardent urgency. He thrusts again, twisting his wrist as he pulls back, and _oh—this’ll do it._  

 _“_ Pagan?” 

Pagan almost doesn’t hear his own name, so honed in on the deliciously slick noises his fist is making that he can almost imagine may be other _lewd_  noises. Then comes the knocking.  _Insistently_ , and loudly. He falters in his strokes, but doesn’t stop, too far gone to care much about it now. The door’s locked. She can wait. 

“Pagan you’ve been in there for fifteen minutes, I gotta go,” Vanya says from the other side of the door, pounding harder, “Please it’s urgent. What are you doing in there?!” 

“Rather busy at the moment!” he snaps breathlessly, heaving as he does his best to be more discrete about what he’s doing. 

“Fifteen minutes is  _way_ longer than a reasonable human being should be taking a piss...  _Please,_ it’s kind of urgent!” 

“You can hold it, I promise. You’ll survive,” he says, gritting his teeth. 

He’d been so close, so  _fucking close_  just then, and if he can just close his eyes and focus for a moment, squeeze just a little tighter just there... 

“ _Jesus Christ_ , it doesn’t work like that. I’ve been holding it since we got in the car like three hours ago. What are you  _doing in there,_  running a marathon?!” Vanya cries out, pounding with renewed vigor at the bathroom door. 

“You  _really_ want to see what I’m fucking doing?!” Pagan snarls, then, having had just about enough. 

His mood’s been ruined anyhow, there’s no way he’s getting off. Before she can even have a moment to respond he slams the sliding lock over and elbows the door open on her, giving her a full display of his almost shameful scene. Trousers round his knees, already half-soft cock still in-hand, flushed with arousal, eyes likely dilated from his little cocaine nip earlier. He expects her to recoil, to give up her pursuit and flinch away, maybe even decide she’s not interested in him now that he’s known for jacking off in a private jet bathroom, but. 

No. 

Naturally, ever the unpredictable woman that she is, she simply stares _straight_  at his cock with unflinching stoicism. Until he’s so self-conscious he has half a mind to tuck himself away and take off running. But where is he to go? 

“Oh. Cute,” Vanya says offhandedly, like she’s just watched a puppy tumble down the stairs, and he’s  _offended._  

She elbows her way through the door and into the tiny bathroom with him then, and Pagan is so taken aback by her blatant disregard to  _his own_ blatant disregard that he just lets her shove him right out of the restroom and into the hallway, pants still half off himself, now-flaccid cock pathetically in-hand. She slams the door in his face, locks it  _loudly_ , and he’s left to gawk at the bulkhead as he just listens to her relieve herself and wash her hands like it’s nothing at all. Like she hasn’t just done. Well— _that._  

Pagan gets himself straightened up and tucked away, and by the time she strolls out of the restroom he’s in ship shape again. She tries to stroll right past him, pretending she hasn’t just more or less assaulted him in her quest for an accessible latrine. On her way by he reaches out and snatches her arm, catching her by surprise and causing her to cry out. _Oh_  how she infuriates him... 

“Next time you try that shit, Vanya, I won’t be so kind,” he hisses in her ear, gripping at her bicep to drive the point home. 

He knows she understands. 

“Next time I try that shit I’m not going to wait so long to shove my way in there. Common sense, Pagan. Next time take your jackoff session somewhere else,” she shrugs, and god help him he just  _lets her go_. 

What can he say?  _I’m sorry you drive me_ _wild,_ _and that the cocaine did_ things _to me? That you caught me with my pants down?_  

 _That I’d have rather you helped me finish that up yourself?_  

He watches her as she retires to the back end of the cabin, over to the seat he’d been keeping warm himself before this whole fiasco. She’s curled up in it quicker than lightning, and he sees that defiant glint in her eyes before she closes them. Like she’s telling him  _I make my own rules._  

And damnit, he finds himself spreading out on the long bench where she had been moments ago. Trading places. 

 _Maybe she does, but not for long. Not outside this airplane._  


	4. Amniotic

It seems like hours before their jet lands somewhere near Amsterdam. Pagan has spent most of it in and out of fevered sleep, never quite catching the right drift to send him into the proper kind of restful he so needs. Every hour seems to tick by in some sort of dream-like state, and it's taken everything in him not to blow straight through every ounce of that little baggie in his coat pocket. 

He’d considered it, genuinely, just to numb his fucking face enough to fall into blissful oblivion for even just an  _hour_ , but if he would get anywhere near as bothered as he did on the first hit, it was  _not_  an option. _N_ _o more awkward erection-led altercations…_  strange as that thought sounds on the front of his mind. 

Their touchdown is smooth in the compact jet plane, but enough to startle Vanya out of her dead sleep. In truth, he'd almost just forgotten she’s been back there the whole the time, curled up in a tiny ball like she's trying to block out the world around her. He can’t blame her, not in the slightest. He’d be doing the same with his own choice of help if he could. 

But, here they both are, sitting on the tarmac to refuel, curling in on themselves and unravelling outwardly all the same. 

He has to do something. 

The co-pilot steps from the cockpit like a blessing, stretching his legs and shaking out his arms, and Pagan is up on his own stiff ones in a matter of seconds, scrambling over to meet him. He could shake the man’s hand for how happy he is to see another living soul than that raven-haired feral child in the corner of the cabin. He’s sure her eyes are on them both. He could give less of a shit. Despite this being the best jet he could find for his money’s worth, he notes the tacky little nametag on the pilot’s breast – Capt. Eydelman. Like this is some sort of commercial airline with need for such things. 

“Your Highn-” 

“Mr. Min is fine,” Pagan cuts him off before he makes the  _precise_  mistake he’s hoped he wouldn’t, “Or sir.” 

“Apologies.  _Sir._ Wanted to ask if there was anything you needed while we’re on the tarmac for the hour?” Eydelman says, eyeing over his shoulder pointedly in Vanya’s direction as though there’s something he won’t say aloud, “Now that there’s two aboard, perhaps some food? It’s a long haul to Patna from here.” 

“ _God_ I know it,” he responds, scrubbing his hands over his bleary eyes, “You know, I’m sure the girl is starving. I  _really_ just want some god damn cognac. Can you get me some of that? Or, fuck,  _whiskey_ , I don’t care, whatever you want. Get yourselves some too, put it all on my tab.” 

“Sir you don’t have a tab this is an airpla-” 

“ _Open_  one then, for fuck’s sake, just—I'm sorry. Food for the both of us, and some halfway decent fucking  _liquor_. Thank you,” Pagan barks, shoving the pilot off like he’s a child who’s been caught doing something wrong. 

With a heavy sigh he turns on his heel and stalks over to the closest seat, throwing himself into it with such disdain that he almost upends the thing and topples himself over. 

Vanya snickers, the first noise he’s heard out of her in  _hours_ besides the quiet  _whuffs_  of her sleepy breathing, and he throws her a warning glare. 

Not one to be deterred – _of course fucking not_ \- she raises a pointed eyebrow and looks him over almost intrusively. 

“Can I help you?” Pagan finds himself snapping, and the moment the words leave his mouth he watches her bristle. 

“You want to sit down more carefully next time?” Vanya quips, but he can see she’s injured. 

She doesn’t hide that very well.

“I wouldn’t have to sit here – or anywhere else for that matter – if you wouldn’t have so  _unceremoniously_  taken  _my seat_ ,  _dúshé_ _,"_ Pagan chides, crossing his legs and kicking back in the seat. 

“I wasn’t aware we had assigned seats on a  _fucking cabin all to the two of us_ ,  _pizda_ ,” she rolls her eyes so hard he’s shocked they don’t stick that way on the way down. 

“ _Oh_ she’s got her own fancy vocabulary - Clearly the bathroom was spacious enough for the two of us!” 

“Oh, _don’t_  you even-” 

“ _Cute_?! Fucking cute, Vanya?” he finds the words pulling from his throat before his mind even has time to process them. 

“What did you want me to say? ‘Ew?’ ‘Help?’ ‘Look how tiny?” her hands are waving in the air, and he thinks he catches a little _pinching_ motion like she’s just implied... 

 _...game fucking on._  

 _“_ What about ‘ _Oh, need a hand_ , savior of my life?’ Or, ‘ _marvelous view, Pagan, you may continue,’_  would have sufficed,” he throws his hands up, wanting to laugh at how ridiculous this has become. 

Vanya just stares at him for a moment, and she becomes deathly still. So still he can practically see the pulse thrumming in her throat, and the tremble in her hands. And then those deep, dark brown eyes flick down slowly, running over his old and battered body like she can see right through every lick of clothing he’s got on. Suddenly he feels as though his slacks and linen shirt are too  _few_  layers between his body and her spitfire gaze. He’s not wearing enough armor for this. 

Her lips part, she breathes in as if to speak, and  _fuck him_ , he  _waits_  with bated breath to hear what vitriol or venom must be about to spill from those plump rosy lips and- 

“I’ll let you know when you've _actually_ saved my life,” she says abruptly, rising to her feet, “And what favors I owe you then, cutie pie.” 

“ _Cutie pie?!”_  

 _“_ Gotta piss. Bother me when we’re in Kyrat or whatever, old man,” Vanya grunts, and she’s off before Pagan can form any kind of proper response. 

 _Whiplash._ That’s the only word for it. Every time they speak, he’s left reeling and dizzy. There’s so much more sense to be made of her now, this wild Daughter of De Pleur. Only, he realizes, she has  _no idea_ what her father is capable of. For all she’s known he’s been a complacent if not shrewd businessman off chasing deals in far away countries to bring home money for his family. It’s not far off from the truth, in some sick and twisted way, but there’s never been a single board meeting or conference call. Just clamps, high voltage,  _cold, austere metal tables_  in rooms where no-one else can hear his victims screaming... 

That’s the Paul Harmon she doesn’t know, has never met. And, unfortunately, as he’s come to realize with a chilling gravity – that's the Paul Harmon in her blood. The sleepy bear he’s not meant to poke, hibernating all her life somewhere in there. Or maybe she’s always been like this, but not by Paul’s accounts. _Not by the research he’s done on her, scheming, planning this entire fucking fiasco before it went to shit._  

- 

When Eydelman returns with a box of goods, Pagan is torn between thanking the man and strangling him. The meager offerings within are certainly not up to his standards, but then that’s the price he’ll have to pay for not personally ensuring their contents, he supposes. Sundries, two bottles of half-decent bourbon he’s never heard of before, two dubiously fresh apples that look to be more like table décor than edible fruit... Enough to last the flight to Patna, at least. They’ll survive. 

“Food, Vanya,” he says, though really to no-one in particular. 

If she chooses to respond, it’s all hers. If she wants to continue moping, that’s fine by him. With a sigh of relief, he draws up one of the bottles of liquor, forgoing the food, and withdraws to the seat he’d originally claimed. Thankfully it’s wide open now, as Vanya has returned to  _her_ original sprawled-out pondering on the long bench opposite him and further up the cabin, and he’s glad to be back in his temporary throne of sorts. 

Looking at her just  _bothers_ him. Like all at once he’s staring at an angry hornet’s nest, a pit of vipers, and Paul Fucking De Pleur frowning sternly at him in his peripheral. 

 _Paul would wring your neck if he knew you jacked off to the thought of her pretty little freckled face..._  

Bourbon. Here’s his solution. 

One swig, then another, soon a quarter of the bottle easily swilled before he’s feeling just fuzzy enough to cope with _that_  intrusive thought. His head falls back and he stares down the bridge of his nose at the clean silver finish of the smooth ceiling. 

“Seventeen hours...” he mutters to himself, just loud enough that Vanya can hear him too in case she’s curious. 

She hasn’t asked him much at all about where they’re going, and she must be dying to know. Despite their altercations and contempt for each other, he’s truly meant to give her a little more lead on where they’ll be going and what they’ll be doing upon their arrival in Kyrat. Truly, he’s intended to offer more clarity, but then his  _god damned libido_ has gone and fucked it all up right alongside his nasty temper. Hand-in-hand, the impulsive harbingers of his own demise. 

Vanya doesn’t stir, doesn’t even lift a finger when he clears his throat pointedly. 

“Long flight ahead of us... Halfway around the world...” 

“Fuck off,” she sighs, so quietly he barely hears her at first and his mind has to do a double take to loop back around and replay what his ears thought they'd heard. 

He can hear the crack in her voice, the hitch of a drawn breath.  _Is she crying?_  

Oh, Jesus Christ... 

Pagan is up on his feet, somehow still clutching his open bottle of booze as he treads silently across the cabin, trying to judge her features as he draws closer. No, no tears on her face, no furrowed brow or trembling lips. No, her eyes are wide and in some far-off trance-like stare. Her chest rises and falls rapidly like she’s a caged animal, hyperventilating in fear. Though she’s sprawled in an almost languid way, her body is held in an almost rigid poise, tension held taut through every limb like she might just snap like a branch at the slightest breeze. Her arms are curled into her chest though her legs seem to have been left wherever they were when she was comfortable. She almost looks piteous, if not a little strange. Something like he must have so many times after a particularly bad high. 

“...Vanya?” He asks quietly, hovering over her but not too close as to crowd her. 

“Fuckoff,” is all she breathes out, voiceless, face set in stone. 

“Are you quite alright, dear? Did something happen?” 

There’s quite a long pause as she tries to get her breathing under some semblance of control, and it seems she has some marginal success as she soon manages to suck in a decent sized breath. 

“Anxiety attack.” 

There are many things he’s experienced in his lifetime, so  _many_  experiences in himself that one could tack onto any number of mental illnesses. All of them have come and go, washed away with drugs and liquor and  _time_ , and perhaps the mind-numbing weight of grief underneath all of it. But anxiety—this is something he hasn’t had the privilege of meeting face to face. He’s never been a man to worry, not more than superficially, and certainly not like  _this_. 

He sits beside her then, hesitant to touch the woman lest she lash out and bite him. She doesn't respond to his presence on the bench, doesn’t even twitch or move her head to get away from him. 

“…Can I assist you somehow? Did I bring this on?” Pagan asks, finding he wants so badly to reach out and rest his hand on her arm, or her shoulder, _anything._  

Her breathing has come down a bit from its frantic pitch, her rhythm only slightly more evened out now. But she's still rigid as a bow, and that above all else keeps him from making contact unwarranted. He doesn’t want to snap her in two. 

“You know, contrary to what opinions you may have formed of me, I'm not a  _monster_. I can offer emotional support, dear. Or at least a back rub,  _something_?” He presses when she remains silent, frowning down at her, “You just tell old Pagan what you'd like of him and we'll be on our merry way to feeling better.” 

God help her, she snorts at that, and some of the tension seems to leave her limbs. He feels like a held breath has been gusted from his lungs though he’s been breathing just fine. 

“Not old,” Vanya mutters, barely a whisper. 

“I seem to remember you calling me as much not too long ago,” he chides, but he takes extra care to ensure there's no hostility in his voice. 

“Was a joke. Sorry,” she ekes out, sucking in a shaky breath, “not old. Just right.” 

It seems just talking is helping her calm down. Her shoulders have relaxed though her arms still clutch at herself as though she'd come undone otherwise. Hesitantly, Pagan rests his hand on her upper arm and is surprised to find she doesn't flinch away from him. 

“ _Well_. I like to think I’m just the right age, yes. I've never been this old before,” he muses. 

“You know what I mean…” 

“Actually, I'd love some elaboration when you’re less anxious.” 

“You're not gonna get any." 

 _Well that's that then…_  

Softly, he runs small circles into her arm with the pad of his thumb and when she's come down far enough from her peak he sees her eyes glaze over and flutter shut. She sighs suddenly, loudly, drawn out long and deep, and all the tension in her body drops like the line has suddenly been cut. Like the entirety of her being has been holding an ethereal breath and she’s just released it all at once, and with it her energy. 

“You alright?” Pagan asks again, leaning over her just slightly to meet her eyes. 

She opens them but doesn't meet his gaze. Bless the poor thing, she looks exhausted. 

“Will be. I… like to do that to calm myself down—hold my breath I mean. Like that. Then let it out,” she explains, though he'd never have thought to question her. 

“That’s nice. Now, here, can you sit up? Have a drink with me. There are few things that make a long flight more tolerable than alcohol. At least, few things I can think that the two of us would share common interest in,” he says cheerily, and to his surprise she sits up without question, hunching over and drawing her knees up onto the seat with her. 

Vanya reaches across his lap to take the bottle of bourbon from his other hand, and he meets her halfway. Their hands brush on the neck of it, but he stuffs down the fluttering response the touch elicits in his chest. No need for that right now, not this ridiculous fleeting feeling. 

“Thanks,” she says into the mouth of the bottle before upending it, taking an impressively hearty swig with little more than pursed lips after the fact, “sorry, I… this is just a lot.” 

 _Got her father's constitution too, clearly…_  

Pagan rises just for a moment to lift a bag of dates and a tin of crackers from the box of sundries he'd left on the table nearby. He's back at Vanya's side in but a moment, and shocked to see that she's brought the bottle down to about half-empty in only a few more swigs. 

“I'd be careful on an empty stomach, the bourbon is strong” he chides, leaving space between them this time where he sets the two packages of food. 

Before he can reach across to ask for the bottle she passes it over to him, almost as if she's read his mind. Her hands are on the bag of dried dates in milliseconds, tearing at the plastic and nearly tossing the things all over the place in her quest for the prize within. She manages to stuff two whole ones into her mouth before he can say a damn thing about it, and all he can do is gawk in amusement. 

“Goodness, woman, have I starved you? Well—don't answer that. I'm hungry too. There’s plenty more in the box over there. We've a long flight to Patna. Try to make it last,” he says, and it takes everything in him not to ruffle her hair at how innocent she looks. 

It's a stark contrast to the fire he's been watching burn behind those dark eyes since yesterday morning, threatening to suffocate them both. He loathes to think of what must be done once they land, and why she’s aboard this aircraft with him in the first place. But he's got time to entertain those thoughts. Seventeen hours' worth of time, and _later_ sounds better than  _now_. 

“Wherewegoin'?” Vanya asks from behind her hand, clearly covering a mouthful of food. 

She's broken into the crackers now as well. 

“Kyrat dear, remember?” 

“Yeah but. I didn’t think the flight would be this long. Are we circling back around to Minnesota or something?” she rolls her eyes, “where is Kyrat anyhow? I could point to it on a map if you  _helped_  me but… it's such a small country isn’t it?” 

“Terribly. Like a tiny ornament on the world's masterpiece map…” Pagan gestures grandly, bottle in hand, “tucked away in the Himalayas.” 

“ _Oh_! Oh my god, I've always wanted to see  them…the mountains, I mean,” Vanya gasps, and her eyes light up, “ _Wow_ , that’s but—why is Kyrat the safest place for me?” 

“I figured you’d come round to asking eventually,” he smiles knowingly, and prays he's got the next bit of his story on point, “You see, I have connections in Kyrat. I've a hand in with the military there, and they know _all_  about this fiasco… These dangerous  men are willing to fly all the way to America to come after your…  _Father_ and his family. They'd risk the CIA so far up their asses they'd spit mouthfuls of Patriotism for weeks just to get their retribution.” 

Vanya's brows have furrowed, and she chews thoughtfully for a little too long on a single date. Her hands have settled in her lap and she genuinely looks as though she’s struggling to understand. 

“…They'd stop at nothing and cross any border to get to him, Vanya. Point and case. But the one place they  _won’t_ go is Kyrat,” he finishes pointedly. 

She nods with grave seriousness then, pushing her jaw forward. 

“I see. Then I'll go.” 

“…Vanya you're already halfway there, dear…” Pagan says with pause, putting his hand over hers to assure her. 

He doesn’t realize he’s reached out and done so until it's too late, but Vanya doesn’t recoil. Instead she swipes the bourbon from his other hand, washes down her mouthful of thoroughly chewed dates with a hearty swill, and then meets his eyes with a determined stare. 

“I'm fucking terrified right now,” she says with urgency, but it doesn’t sound like she’s frightened. 

It's more of a stoic statement. 

“I’m terrified, and worried about Paul, and so fucking confused about a lot of shit, and trying to push it all down, and-…” Vanya continues, cutting off into a sudden hiccup. 

 _Oh,_ _poor thing._  

Without thinking, without even considering what he’s doing, Pagan finds himself leaning across the gap he’s made between them and suddenly drawing his arms around her into a crushing hug. She doesn’t fight him, doesn't struggle in the slightest. Instead she scoots herself closer until she's all but pressed against his side, letting out a pitiful whimper into his shirt. 

The moment he realizes what's going on, it's already too late to back out. Vanya has fisted her hands into the fabric of his shirt and buried her face in his chest, and, bless her, her hands are shaking violently all of a sudden. Every inch of her pressed against him is warm and soft, and not at all what he's expected from such a fierce spitfire woman. And as he stares helplessly down at her, clinging to him for the comfort she needs, he feels an unfamiliar ache welling up in his chest. 

Something that hasn't touched him in a long time. Something that burns like a sweet fire and crackles like shattering ice over the surface of a lake. He finds his palms spreading and rubbing over the warmth of her back through her thin shirt, and he ducks his head down to press his face into the top of her head. Smelling that  _Vanya_ scent, and nothing more for she hasn’t had the luxury of a shower just as he hasn't. 

 _You've made it this far you sorry cunt, just push it further._  

This unwanted thought is enough to push him back from the edge. Just enough to still his hands and straighten him up a little. Just enough to cool the fire that’s started under his skin and in his chest in that strangely Vanya shaped reservoir. 

 _Not_ enough, however, to  prepare him for just how terrible the shock is when she lifts her head away from his heaving chest with a gasp and looks him straight in the eye. _Not_  enough to stop him from ducking down ever so slightly, but not all the way.  _Not_ enough to resist when, to his surprise, Vanya meets him somewhere in the middle and presses her lips to his in a pleasantly heated kiss that lights up every last nerve ending in his withered old soul. 

Her hands tremble harder, and she whimpers so softly on his lips that he thinks maybe he's hurt her, but she nuzzles in more.  _Testing_. And so does he, if that's what this is, but then it's over as quickly as it started when he finds himself pulling away, cussing under his breath. 

Vanya is out of his hold in mere moments, and Pagan can only watch as she pulls herself away and straightens herself up again. 

“I get it, it's fine, that was rude of me to assume you-" she says, rolling her eyes. 

“Best not talk about it…” Pagan cuts her off to agree, stuffing down the overwhelming urge to choke on his own breath. 

He can hear his pulse in his ears, can feel his blood trying to redirect where it pleases – _further south primarily –_ and it genuinely fucking  _scares him_  how far gone he is. What of his impulse control? Who is a man who's spent his life spoiling his own impulsive pleasures if he can't control the  _one_  that could be his undoing? 

Vanya lingers close by him, at least somewhat, and he wonders for a moment whether she doesn't wish just as he does that they hadn't just stayed right where they were just then. It certainly would have been a more interesting way to pass the hours up in the air… 

“So how long now til we land?” she asks, crossing her legs, and he can’t help but notice that she fearlessly bumps knees with him as she does so,  _the fucking tease_. 

Here's the Vanya he’s come to know, rearing her head again. Ever finding ways to get under his skin, even subtly. And fuck, the bourbon fogging his system isn’t helping anything seem any more subtle. 

“By my watch… fifteen and a half hours,” Pagan says, and sighs heavily, “not a pretty flight. So, I may as well tell you… you're… not going to like me when we land in Kyrat.” 

“What? Why? What's that supposed to mean?” she asks, looking him over as if she's searching for answers on his person. 

“If you worry about that now, you’ll be miserable for fifteen and a half hours,” he chides her, wagging a finger at her, “we’ve had something of a rough start I think. So we may as well make friends for now, hm? No use being two miserable fucks on separate sides of the cabins when we could be two miserable fucks _together_.” 

“…are you asking me out?” 

“ _What?!_  No! Don’t flatter yourself girl.” 

Vanya grins, wide and toothy, and for a moment he's just glad he's made it out of their close encounter intact. Such a woman could have eaten his face off, and he escaped with only a ki— _no, no, stuff that thought down._  And yet, as she stands up and shuffles off to use the latrine he can’t help her to watch her in a whole new way – this woman he barely knows and has started to… 

 _Say it, coward_. 

…fall for… 

Pagan finds himself on his feet, following after her blindly, just drunk enough on the half-quality whiskey that his gait has become a little lilted. He meets her at the bulkhead just as she's stepped out of the lavatory, drying her hands on her pants, and before either of them can say a damn thing  _she_  latches onto  _him_. Fistfuls of his shirt and that newly familiar fire in her eye, she so easily gets him against the side of the cabin and  _stares him down_ , nose to nose. 

It's now that he realizes she really is quite tall. Almost intimidatingly so. In fact, she's probably got an inch on him which is saying something at his stately six feet. And it might be the bourbon talking, or the  _new_ ,  _excitingness_  of this thing compared to that old petite lover of his, so long ago, but he thrills in this as much as he fears how easily she’s managed to manhandle him. He could push her off easily, of course, he's still just at the edge of his prime and not quite out of it yet. 

But she’s not a threat to him. There’s no anger in her eyes, none of that rage she's come to foster in the brief time he's known her. No, this is the fire he's seen her tending in private, and reluctantly. And quick as a flash she’s off him, drawing away, but before she can get too far Pagan pursues her, catching her by the arms and drawing her to his chest. 

“No,” he grunts, low and coarse, “what was that?” 

Her eyes go wide, and she's so close he can smell the liquor on her breath. They’re both rightly toasted, and maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it’s better this way, so they can forget about what he very well may do to her. 

“Just… I don’t know,” Vanya utters, and he can _feel_  the soft bluster of her breath over his parted lips, can taste it on his teeth. 

Her hands bunch up in his shirt again, surely creasing the linen beyond repair now, and before he can close the space between their lips she pulls hard, leading him back into the cabin. In a few purposeful strides she's back against the long cushioned bench, and falling back onto it like it's the one thing she was made to do. And  _fuck_ , even in the way she sits he can see that fire in her that only worsens the ache in his  chest and his lungs and his  _cock._  This spitfire wildling of a woman, putting out their smolder with gasoline. 

Pagan can’t help himself, not even if he tries. He’s too far gone to give half a damn, and when she claws up at his hands to draw him down he sinks to the cushions without a second thought. Vanya climbs into his lap, rising above him so that he has to crane his neck to gaze up at her strong form, and that healthy dose of fear settles in his stomach again as he admires her stature. He wants so terribly to feel her, to explore her supple curves and wide hips, but she has other plans in store for the two of them as she bends down and kisses him _hard._  

Her hands are in his hair and around the back of his neck, and her wild curls are falling around him, tickling their faces, and he's lost to her. Tongues dancing, parrying, tasting one another and the hot breaths they heave _._  Kisses laced with bourbon and edged with nibbles on swollen lips that leave both of them gasping for air. 

 _Christ_ , how this burns as she tangles herself around him and in his lap. How fucking horribly this hurts him, low and heavy beneath the fuzzy cotton of  liquor and lust and exhaustion and  _need_. 

Vanya's hands are at the buckle of his belt, he's come to notice through their haze, and just as easily he finds his own fingertips simply hooking behind the waistband of her bottoms. While she fumbles with drunken fingers to figure out his trousers Pagan simply _tugs_ and the loose-fitting pants she's wearing bunch up at her thighs. His hands are on her before she's quite finished freeing him, and he pauses only to lift from the seat to allow his own trousers to be tugged down when she's ready. He’s not sure what this is, or if this is  _right_ , but then Vanya tucks her forehead into the crook of his neck and wraps her long fingers around his aching erection and he's nearly undone right then and there. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Pagan chokes, hands scrabbling to find something to do as his vision blurs. 

The smell of her arousal is strong, and he’s not proud of how long it's been since either of them have showered, but above it all the natural perfume of her hair knits a painful thread of longing into the ache in his gut. She's right there,  _begging_  to be touched, legs spread above him,  _stroking his cock_ , but he can’t bring himself to focus on anything more than the fire in her palm that she's spreading slowly through his veins. He slips his hand between her legs, seeking the heat of her, and revels in her delighted gasp as his fingertips slide along her crease. She’s nearly soaked already, clearly as worked up as he's been, and her legs tremble as he rubs loose exploratory circles around her swollen clit. 

“Pagan…” she huffs, breath hot against his collarbones as his hips snap up, shamelessly rutting into her hand. 

He _needs_ this. From her. Right now. Needs  _her._  

“ _Oh,_ _dúshé_ _…"_  he chokes out, rocking into her hand as his fingers forge further between her legs and he finds his mark. 

She's aching for him, he can feel her quivering. He’s able to slip two fingers inside her with no resistance, and the sugar-sweet croon he pulls from her frays him at the edges. Soon they find a mutual rhythm together, her fingers squeezing and his rocking deep and purposeful. She sings like a canary into his shoulder, even louder so when he curls a third finger in, stroking delicately at her clit in passing. 

The heat is unbearable, and her skin feels like liquid fire wherever he touches her.  _Fuck_. This is going to end quickly. He can feel his stomach tying in knots, building up much more frantically than it had some few hours ago all on his own. And suddenly, all too suddenly, he's got stage fright. 

“Stop, stop,” Pagan cusses, burying his face in her shoulder and heaving out a shuddering groan. 

Her hand never ceases, squeezing and twisting and tugging like she knows _just_  how to pleasure him, and as the soft of her palm grazes over the tip of him he's blindsided. Choking back a sob, he goes rigid, inadvertently biting down hard on Vanya's shoulder and tumbling into bliss. He can hear her gasp, feel her going rigid for a heartbeat as well under the vice grip of his teeth on her tender flesh. 

When he finally gathers his senses and can wrap his head around his waking existence again, he opens his eyes to find her right in his face again. Her hips are still rocking feverishly on his hand, and he realizes she's still aching for her own climax. 

“ _Fuck,_ Vanya…” he chokes out, gasping for breath. 

She’s not far behind him, twitching and gasping and jerking this way and that as his fingers curl and stroke her inner walls, stoking the furnace until suddenly she seizes up with a strangled cry that nearly breaks his heart in the strangest, almost beautiful way. It sounds almost like his name on her lips, but she's up off his lap quickly before he can even kiss her in the afterglow, and off to the lavatory once again without another word. 

He watches her go, his whirlwind experience embodied, and scrubs his face with his clean hand in exasperation as reality sinks in. 

 _They've gone too far._  

- 

Vanya doesn’t come out of the lavatory. She stays inside for easily thirty minutes before he gives up pining for her, and with an embittered sigh Pagan takes up the remaining remnants of the bourbon bottle and retires to _his_  chair at the back of the cabin. 

Hopefully now with _this_ mess out of his system he’ll be able to move on from her just fine. Hopefully now they can sleep off the booze and wake up in Patna like  _nothing ever happened._


	5. Outside Looking In

Seventeen hours.

Pagan is seventeen hours late, and for a man who lives by his own schedule, even this long is ridiculous. Ajay had an early dinner set up in the dining room as _instructed_ , according to Pagan’s itinerary. An early dinner set for _four PM yesterday evening_. A dinner that had sat, and waited, and gone cold, never touched save for himself, alone in that lavish room under the steady gaze of his oversized royal portrait.

_Pretentious, unmotivated fuck_.

But he’s heard the call come in over the comms, both from Kamran and from Gary. Nine-fucking-AM and they’ve only just entered Kyrati airspace, heading straight for the palace. Begrudgingly, Ajay has gotten himself up and dressed and down to the rendezvous point faster than he’d like to admit. For a moment as he’s steering the jeep down the short, winding drive he considers just waiting up at the palace and making Pagan walk Paul up himself, like a big _fuck you_ for being so god-damned inconsiderate. It’s not like it’s that far of a stroll. Just that the hill is steep, and he’d have to double back up a few winding curves.

And yet, here he is, standing beside a bleary-eyed Gary, watching as the chopper blows into view on the horizon and soon shakes the trees in its wake, sending birds scattering to the air. If the whole of Northern Kyrat didn’t know Pagan was back in the area, they certainly did now.

“Wonder why he’s so late?” Gary asks beside him as the whirr of the helicopter’s blades dies down and cuts off, and all Ajay can offer is a shrug.

“I’ve heard less from him than anyone else has, beats me,” he responds, straightening up when the side door is slid open by Pagan himself.

He’s half-expecting to see Paul fall from the helicopter in tears, begging for forgiveness – or kissing the ground in thanks, he’s never sure with that man. What he gets instead is a thoroughly disgruntled King Min hopping fluidly to the gravel and reaching back up into the chopper to courteously help down a tall, mussed-up brunette woman. Built like a scrapper, some meat on her bones, looking absolutely knackered. And, most importantly, _not Paul-fucking-De Pleur_. Ajay doesn’t even get a chance to ask questions as Pagan meets his eye for the briefest of moments. The woman has dread in her eyes, and looks like she wants to say something, but before she can he’s got her by the arm and he shoves her hard away from him, towards Ajay and Gary.

“ _What_ , is this finally the part where I don’t like you anymore?” the woman asks, and even from several yards away Ajay can feel the fire radiating off her.

Her hands are shaking. She looks... well, not angry, but like she’s burning with something fiercely consuming inside. He knows how that feels.

“ _This_ is the part where you stop liking me, yes,” Pagan says, nonchalant as ever, rolling his eyes as he watches Gary make a beeline for the chopper to collect his things from within, “Welcome to Kyrat, Miss Rotenberg. Ajay will show you up to the palace. I’ve got work to do. Ta for now.”

_Hang on, Ajay will do what?_

Again, before he can get a word in edgewise, the woman pipes up, yelling louder. Why so much yelling? Had they been like this on their plane ride over? What _happened_ in America?!

“ _Palace_? You wanna explain this to me?” She shouts, taking a few challenging steps towards Pagan.

Ajay is shocked at her audacity. No-one in their right mind would make any sudden moves at the King like that. But then Pagan lets her do as she pleases. Just outright ignores her vitriol and turns on his heel, headed for the jeep with Gary at his coattails like he hasn’t swept into the country seventeen hours late and looking like he’s been gnawed at by a rabid honey badger and thrown out of a moving vehicle. And maybe that’s exactly what’s happened, for as unpredictable as everything seems to have been up until this point.

He and this stranger are left to watch as Pagan slams himself into the jeep after Gary, he doesn’t even think once to follow and try to get into the back. They can walk. That’s fine. That’s Karma, after everything he’d considered this morning. The Rotenberg woman simply drops straight to the ground where she’s been standing, laughing piteously and throwing her head back. As her curls fall away from her shoulders Ajay notices an angry bite mark on the nape of her neck just above the collar of her tee shirt, and— _fuck let’s stuff away those questions for later._

“Uh. Hey,” he clears his throat, “You uh. You okay?”

She whips her head to stare him in the eye unflinchingly, her laugh cutting off so abruptly that the ensuing silence shakes him more than her laughter.

“Do I _look_ okay?”

“...My name’s Ajay Ghale,” he says, forgoing follow-up questions.

It’s never been his forte.

“ _Vanya_. I’m Vanya,” she responds after taking a deep breath, replying on the heavy sigh of her exhale.

“Uh. Welcome to Kyrat. Uh. What...”

“ _We’re going to a palace_?” she interrupts him, staring up the hill at the stately building off in the distance, “Is that it? Why is he going there? _Who is he_?!”

“...You... you don’t know? Pagan Min? King of Kyrat?” Ajay gawks, raising his eyebrows, “You really just spent however fucking long on an airplane with that pompous bastard and never once did he manage to throw it in your face that he’s, well, _him_?”

Ajay waits for some sort of clarity to settle over her, for her to gasp and nod and praise him like he’s just shed light on some enormous mystery this woman has clearly been chasing after. But she simply stares off at the palace with chagrin and a touch of resentment he doesn’t even want to begin to question.

“...No. No, he told me,” Vanya pauses to suck in a breath as she straightens her legs in the dirt with a scrape of her heels, “I _knew_ that he was a business mogul in Hong Kong. President of some company, or some high-up manager or something. King can’t be right, Mr. Ghale.”

“Ajay,” he insists, “and I promise you he’s King. I don’t know if I want to know how you got here, or _why_ , or what happened on the way over that has you two so riled up, or how the hell someone convinced you he was a businessman but—can I sit?”

Vanya doesn’t respond, merely turns to look up at him and shrugs her shoulders lamely. If she’s going to stay plopped right here in the gravel while the wind whips past them and chills her to the bone in nothing but a t-shirt and jeans, the least he can do is sit with her. It seems like the palace may not be the best place for either of them at the moment anyhow. And so, he sits across from her, cross-legged in the dirt like it’s nothing at all.

“You look like shit,” he points out, and before she can get too offended, he covers his ass, “I felt the same damn way when I got here. You want my jacket? Must be cold.”

He’s been good at changing subjects his whole life, and letting things roll off his shoulders.

Vanya, it seems, is not.

“Pagan _told_ me he’s from Hong Kong. I’ve met him before, and he told me the same thing then. Two years it’s been that way,” She says, as though she’s trying to defend the man even though he’s just dumped her quite literally flat on her ass.

“Listen. I have no idea what you’re talking about, so maybe you can elaborate. But—aw, fuck, just look,” he grumbles, and fishes in his coat pocket for his wallet and the impressive wad of cash within.

As though she knows what’s coming, Vanya holds out her hand to him with a look that almost says _pay me_ , and he almost laughs at the thought. He remembers this old gag, the same demonstration pulled on him by the man who should have shown up on that chopper with Pagan this morning. It may not be Pagan whose face she’s peering down at as he slaps a few bills in her hands, but for all intents and purposes, _it is._

“You can keep the money, I don’t care, but. There. Look familiar? Have you really never done a little research on the world? Don’t answer that one...” he trails off.

Admittedly, he didn’t have any idea what he was getting himself into here either when he first crossed the border from Patna a year ago.

“Ajay.”

She’s staring at him, dark brows knitted together in concern. Right into his eyes, leaning closer. Not close enough to be in his face, but all the same it’s nearer than he’d like her to be all of a sudden.

“What’s going on?”

_Fucking really?_

“I should be asking you that, frankly. You’re not at all who I was expecting to step off that helicopter,” Ajay says, exasperated, half-expecting follow-up questions from her before she’ll let him finish, “How did you get here? Why did Pagan tell you he ran a business in Hong Kong?”

“Barring what I’m starting to think is heinously incorrect – my father worked for Pagan in Hong Kong for two years. He uh, I guess he made a bad business deal, and the men he affected are angry and out for blood? We found out while Pagan was really conveniently in town for a visit, and he asked Pagan to bring me somewhere safe until things were taken care of. Which, I guess, is here. He... told me he had connections with the military here and that these men wouldn’t fuck with Kyrat.”

“That’s a crock of shit.”

Vanya winces as though he’s slapped her, and he holds up his hands in defense.

“Sorry. I don’t mean that you’re lying to me. I mean maybe you are? I don’t know. What I mean is there’s no way Pagan was conveniently in America to visit—wait hang on,” everything in his thought process slams to a halt as things catch up to him all at once, “Wait. _Wait._ Who did you say your father is?”

She narrows her eyes at him, tilting her head inquisitively. Suddenly Ajay itches to be on his feet and several yards away from her. Something about her seems _off_ , like he’s just pushed the wrong button and lifted the wrong curtain. Vanya holds her silence for a long time, perhaps waiting to see if he’ll break or move on from the subject. Why she could be so tight-lipped on the subject, he has no idea. But all the same, it seems to take her ages before she responds to him.

“My father is Paul Harmon. Have you heard of him or something?” She asks, choosing her words carefully, “Is there something I should know?”

_“Oh my god are you really?”_ Ajay gawks aloud, much more urgently than he’s meant to, and then claps a hand over his mouth, “Oh Jesus Christ.”

Now she _really_ looks upset.

“I'm his daughter. Surprise. So you do know him? For fuck’s sake, rub salt in the wound why don’t you,” she spits, and he has to keep from laughing at how ridiculous this entire fucking day has become.

“What, is nobody supposed to know he’s your dad or something?”

_Bingo._

The flat look she gives says all he needs to hear. That is absolutely the answer to his question. _No, Ajay, you fucking idiot._ Way to make it awkward.

“Listen. Let’s... Can we go up to the palace now, please? Or do you want to sleep out here in the dirt? I’ve got shit to do, and I’m sure you have shit to talk with Pagan about whenever he’s... ready to talk to you. Come on,” Ajay sighs, and he’s up on his feet in one swift roll.

Vanya stares at him, hard and untrusting, but then her face eases into something much softer and more... exhausted. He’s sure she’s tired. The trip from America to Kyrat wasn’t easy when he took it, and he’d taken it under much different circumstances – and certainly not alone on a plane with Pagan Min. Finally she concedes and rises to her feet, and they’re off up the hill without another complaint out of her – miraculously.

-

Upon settling their unexpected guest into a room in the East Wing, Ajay realizes there’s a crucial Something missing from her accoutrements – clothes. The poor woman has come halfway across the world without a single shred of clothing besides what she’s got on her back, which isn’t saying much. Given what he's gathered about her apparent ‘evacuation' from the states for one reason or another, Pagan must not have left her any time to pack for herself.

And so, of course, _errand boy_ that he is, he's on another fetch quest for somebody else.

He raps his knuckles twice at the door to Pagan’s suite. No reply, but he knows Min is here. There’s only one place the King goes to sulk and it sure as shit isn’t anywhere where any of his household staff has clearance to go. The door is unlocked. It turns with a welcoming _click_ and he's in Pagan's study in three easy strides.

“Hey,” Ajay calls out in warning, “just me.”

“In here, boy.”

_His closet?_

Pagan must have the same thoughts on Vanya's predicament. Or he's unpacking. Or high off his gourd and having conversations with the coat hangers again, who the fuck knows with him?

Ajay peers around the corner into the spacious expanse of Pagan's veritable second-bedroom of a closet and finds the King simply standing in the midst of all his neatly organized wardrobe. _Staring_ , and just… like he's sleeping on his feet.

“You alright?” he asks when Pagan doesn’t quite register his presence in the room.

“Hmm? Oh, yes, quite. _Exhausted_ ,” Pagan says flatly, shoulders sagging, and he really starts to notice just how bedraggled he looks.

“I bet. You wanna tell me how you managed to get De Pleur's _daughter over here and not the man himself_?”

“ _Not now,”_ Pagan snaps, suddenly lighting up with ferocity.

“Fuck, alright. Brief me on it over lunch or some shit. I better get told today,” Ajay relents, “She has nothing to wear. No clothes, shoes, nothing but what she brought over on her back. You wanna fix that?”

The fire in the King's eyes simmers there for a hot, tempered moment, and then diminishes into something akin to disapproval. No, mischief. Barely readable, but there. He knows him far too well, can read those subtle signs on that calculated face.

“Turn around.”

“What?”

“Behind you, my boy,” Min rolls his eyes, “the old chest there. Take that. I'm fairly certain there's something in there she can use.”

“You have… women's clothing? …In a trunk?”

_Kinky, old man…_

“Oh for Christ's sake they're not mine, Ajay. Just take it and be gone, I need my rest. _Thank you.”_

That's that then, and Ajay is out of his suite with the old trunk faster than his dignity will usually allow. Short tempered he may be, but this woman seems to have brought out an even lower baseline in the King. Best to keep off the turf until things smooth out. Or until they blow up, which is far more likely in Pagan’s case.

He’s back to Vanya’s designated room with the heavy trunk hoisted over one shoulder, and she’s conveniently toweled up out of the shower. _How fucking cliché._

“ _Oh_ shit I didn’t expect you to actually find me anything,” she says, clutching at the towel wrapped around her midsection, “This is like something out of a movie, honestly. All of it. Wow.”

“Maybe more for you than me. These came from Pagan. Thank him later, not me,” Ajay shrugs as he drops the heavy chest on the floor beside the ornate dressing screen someone has had brought up to the room, “Is everything alright up here for you? I know it’s a lot. It’s like a gilded goddamn cage. Kind of smothering if I’m honest.”

She winces hard at the mention of her new _travel companion_ but softens back to casual apathy again as he continues. _Bullet dodged._

“Yeah it’s... I mean it’s not what I expected obviously but everything is so... _expensive._ Like a luxury vacation, I guess. I’ll make the best of it.”

“We’ll see how much you like it after a few days here getting lost down the same winding hallways, choking on incense smoke and talking to the same fucking people all day long,” Ajay sighs, sitting on the edge of the expansive bed she’s been given.

As he speaks, she’s moved to the chest of clothes and opened it, rooting curiously through the contents. After some consideration her head pops back up and she stares at him ponderously, clutching a handful of what he can see are colorful, nondescript silks.

“These... would you mind hanging around until I try some of this on?”

“Wasn’t planning on going anywhere. Got nothing better to do,” he shrugs, kicking back on the bed and folding his arms up behind his head.

He listens, staring up at the ceiling, and behind the rustling of fabric and occasional bump of furniture behind the screen, he can hear her grumbling. Struggling. Hard. What kind of clothes did he bring her? Straitjackets and Scene Kid pants from Ajay’s American High School days?

“Uh. Ajay.”

She sounds absolutely put off. Tentatively he peers down his torso before sitting up. Just to make sure she’s not indecent. The sight he’s met with is jarring. The poor woman, all six feet and the extra inch of her, has tried to squeeze herself into traditional Kyrati garb made for someone who was clearly _much_ more petite. In every aspect. It’s a miracle the drapes of the silks hide anything at all, and the skirts are not modest in the slightest. She looks absolutely pitiful, cherry-red and soggy-haired and caving in on herself in embarrassment.

“Are... are they all that small?” Ajay asks, unable to tear his eyes away.

“This is the third outfit I’ve tried. I think so. Who wears this kind of stuff anyway? Does the King have a tiny little consort? Is this meant to be a fucking joke?!” Vanya’s voice rises with her temper, but her words are slowly drowned out by the crushing recognition of what exactly is going on.

_Motherfuck Pagan._

The teal and magenta, the gold overlay of the silk fineries. He knows he’s seen it somewhere before. And it’s taken him a moment to register, but when Vanya turns away and all he sees of her are wild black curls and the mockery of what was once the _Tarun Matara’s regalia..._ Sleek black hair and those bold youthful colors, but pale white skin instead of that beautiful brown, not...

_These were his mother’s clothes._ Probably left here when she fled the country with him on her hip, thinking only of him, only of Ajay. And _fuck_ , that ragged burn that suddenly tears right through him like sickening nausea on the edge of concertina wire. Pagan knows exactly what he’s done.

He’s made a mockery of the both of them, and at the cost of the one woman who should not be dragged into whatever sick game he’s playing.

“...Ajay?” The woman with black hair turns, with that pale skin so very not Kyrati tan, and he can’t look at her face, can’t see Paul De Pleur’s features in amongst the raven curls.

Ajay is out of the room, running blindly into the halls. Crashing into expensive furniture as he careens on a hell-bent path for Pagan’s bedroom door. The clothes are left behind, left to rot with their guest for all he fucking cares. It’s not her fault, and _he’ll fix this_ , but not before he punches the smug fucking grin off that bastard’s freckled fucking--

The door is locked. He’s made it into Pagan’s study, into the main complex of his suite. But his bedroom door is locked tight. And over his own thundering heartbeat he can hear subtle snoring from the other side. He comes close, so _fucking_ close, to pounding on the door. But a calm settles over him more easily than expected. In his year here, Ajay has learned to bide his time. He can wait. Pagan can have his peace and beauty rest. And when his day is nice and orderly again, _then_ will be the time for confrontation. Fuck it up all over again.

_For what you did to her, to Mom._

King Min’s closet is unlocked. He won’t miss a handful of last year’s casual clothes. Vanya will have to make due. And, if he’s getting to know her even just a little, he thinks she may enjoy the irony in dressing like the King after all this.

-

It takes one week and seventeen hours for things to calm down again, and Ajay has almost completely forgotten about the clothes incident. It's barely a prickle at the back of his mind. He's taken to long, unaccompanied drives in the south again, far out of the prying eyes of most of Pagan's closer circle. With Paul gone and most of the outposts in the fumbling hands of the Golden Path, it's an entirely different region. Crawling with blue denim and itchy trigger fingers, jumpy rebels trained on just about anything and anyone they don't recognize.

Pagan had lauded Ajay personally for helping retake Varshakot after Sabal's men rooted Paul out. It was an ugly business, but something that had to be done. They'd had preparations for a homecoming and everything, and now they were simply wasting Royal Army on a vacant shell of a stronghold, waiting for a Governor. Paying men to sit on their asses and watch for Golden Path at all hours of the day, mostly waiting, mostly scratching their asses and getting stoned.

Vanya has been silent as can be, barely doing more than making small talk and eating when offered meals. She doesn’t watch television, or read, or listen to music. Nothing he offers her seems to placate her restlessness, her constant state of ennui. And so he’s given up on trying, really. It's like talking to a rabid badger when she _does_ hold a conversation, as she constantly snaps at the slightest mention of Pagan, or America, or, really, anything outside of ‘hi how are you?’

King Min has been much the same, if not twofold. Any sane member of the staff has been avoiding either of them. They know to steer one clear of the other like the plague. And in his mind clear as day, Ajay can hear either one of them voice their displeasure like a mirror of the other.

_“Don’t talk about him.”_

_“Don't say her name.”_

_“Stop, Ajay.”_

It takes one week and eighteen hours for Ajay to have had _just enough._ He pulls a three-point turn on the dirt road he’s tearing down, and hauls straight back for the King's Bridge. Eric's face glowers at him confidently from every billboard lining the final turn to the bridge, the key to the North, gloating as if to goad him into confrontation.

_As if that’s not already what's going down._

-

Pagan's suite is locked, but it's not hard to figure out the pin to the keypad. For a man so concerned with security, especially his own, choosing his unofficial stepson’s birthday as the pin-code to his personal apartments may be his downfall. His study is dark, and smells of stale liquor. Ajay's feet kick at discarded rubbish strewn about the floor as he makes an effort to move silently across the room. But no-one stirs. Either Pagan is asleep, or he doesn’t care. He's left the place a right disaster.

The door to his bedroom is open just a hair. A sliver of lamplight from within cuts a beam across the floor in front of him. As he draws close, hands curling into tense fists, he hears the rustling of sheets. _Good_. Time to rouse the King from his beauty rest.

_“Wake up!”_ Ajay barks, shoving the bedroom door open roughly with a slam of his fist.

But Pagan doesn’t startle, doesn’t even jump. He's sitting up in his bed, shirtless and trembling, drenched in a light sheen of sweat. His brown eyes are blown wide open into wide pools of black, and he wipes at his nose and directs a wry, telling smile at Ajay – all top teeth and feigned innocence. In his hands he clutches his cell phone, the bright light of the screen illuminating his flushed face in the mostly dim room. In his lap is a sage green shirt, bunched up like he's been toying with it absentmindedly.

“Is that _Vanya's_ shirt?”

Min looks over the side of his cell phone at the article of clothing laid on the covers over his lap, runs his hand over the heathered fabric.

“I suppose it is,” Pagan says distantly, a tremor in his voice, “I find myself hanging onto one now and again when I come across them.”

“That's fucking weird,” Ajay puts his hands up, trying to push those thoughts aside.

_“What_ , you’ve never found yourself waking up from a dream, missing the smell of someone's hair? So _fucking angry_ and hung up on one moment of--"

_“Shut_ the fuck up.” Ajay interrupts urgently, shaking his head hard.

_Nope. No. Don’t wanna know._

“You've come just in time, you know!” Pagan says, “I think I'm sober enough to finally make that call.”

All the pent-up anger in him hangs on the precipice of ruin. Things have culminated to such a delectable boiling point, to a place he can taste sweetly on the tip of his tongue. In a way he can let out satisfactorily. But things clearly aren't meant to go as planned – and do they ever when it's Pagan he's dealing with?

“You're high as a fucking kite. We talked about this. You're not supposed to be using,” Ajay says bluntly, glowering, trying to hang onto the glowing embers of his anger before they die out.

He can't give up and tuck tail and run. Not this time.

“Funny thing, boy, but it sounds like you're telling me what I can and can't do,” Pagan says, and his voice is slow and tempered.

His words are edged with purpose. With sudden bitterness and condescension that are surprisingly lucid coming out of a man who's strung out on the tail end of a cocaine high like it's just another Saturday afternoon.

“Nobody else has the fucking balls to,” he snarls back, baring his teeth.

It takes everything in him not to slap the phone out of Pagan's hands as he peers back down at the thing, scrunching up a consternated face.

“I’m sure you’re here for the precise reason you need to be. Just relax, wait and see,” the King says matter-of-factly, and Ajay raises an eyebrow in question at his cryptic diffusion of the tension in the room.

All Ajay can let himself do is stand and stare, gawking, rooted to the spot in the middle of Pagan's bedroom. He's caught somewhere between disgust and captivation. Lethargy and action. A strange limbo brought on by stumbling in on this scene that is both so mundane and yet so awfully _weird_.

Pagan’s face lights up suddenly with a myriad of emotions in rapid succession, and his thumb brushes the bottom corner of his phone screen twice. He drops the phone into the covers, blindingly bright screen face-up to illuminate the bed in a halo of blue light, and his hands fall into his lap and bunch in the green fabric of Vanya's stolen shirt. And he _grins_. Triumphantly, proudly. Like he’s done something right, and something terrible all at the same time.

The phone rings, loudly. Placed on speaker phone. He can't make out the name on the screen as far away as he is.

_“What the fu-"_

“Shh shh!!” Pagan hisses, pressing a finger haphazardly to his own lips, and in the next heartbeat someone picks up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Paul De Pleur! Long time! How are you?”

_“Pagan?”_

“So sorry I left so abruptly after supper last week! What a shit show.”

Ajay pales as he watches Pagan come alive, locking eyes with the King as he addresses the phone at his lap.

“Waltzed right into my life and then right back out again. Guess you wised up and got the message.”

Pagan's lips curl into a subtle little smirk at Paul's snide remarks.

“I won’t apologize. I did thank your daughter for her hospitality though,” Min says, choosing his words carefully so even Ajay understands them well enough, “I've thanked her in the best way I know how in fact!”

“Ashley? Yeah yeah, she liked your little gift you gave her. Kiss-ass…”

That little curl at Pagan's lips tugs tighter, spreading into a smile. His gaze bores into Ajay's so intensely that he has to look away and clear his throat. This is a one-sided game, and nobody else knows the rules. Everyone else is a loser, even Ajay if he doesn’t play his cards right, and he doesn't even have an inkling of what’s going on in the first place.

“Paul, how _is_ Ashley?”

“She's fine. I have to go. Don’t call me again. Fucking ever.”

_“Oh_ , how good to—” _Click._

Pagan's phone lights up bright fuchsia as the call screen closes out disconnected. He blinks down at the thing, clearly not having anticipated this U-turn. But it seems there's a solution, for he opens up an application, taps a button or two, and calls again. A proxy number, most likely. But a _stupid_ idea. It'll be obvious. He isn’t thinking straight through the drugs.

Paul answers on the second ring.

_“Fuck you, shitlord.” Click._

Another call.

Four rings.

_“Really?_ Are we five years old now?” _Click._

The frustration is written blatantly across every inch of Pagan’s body. He’s wired from head to toe, almost stiff in his poise in the bed. His fingers are stiff and claw-like as he hovers his hand above the phone, moving to call again.

_“Pagan._ Stop. What are you trying to accomplish?” Ajay interjects, finding the words he's been seeking for the past painful handful of minutes.

The King deflates, gritting his teeth and sagging into himself. His hands fall into his lap as his shoulders slump and he gathers up Vanya's shirt, pitifully burying his face in the fabric of it and presumably getting a good _whiff_ of her perfume or sweat or deodorant. _Still fucking weird, old man._

He drops her shirt again suddenly, realization washing over his face like he’s been slapped with clarity. Before Ajay can lunge across the room to stop him from calling again, he's done it. And, miraculously, Paul picks up. Either he’s bored, or having fun himself over there watching this unravel in his own time zone.

“Paul!”

_“…Vanya is gone.”_

... Or there's that.

Pagan visibly sinks with relief, and picks himself right back up again into this little game of his. Nobody else is in the lead yet, and all bets are still on…

“What do you mean? I walked her home after dinner, got her inside safe and sound, and hopped right back on the next plane home to Kyrat without a second thought. You expect me to have answers?” he pipes up, sounding the picture of innocence, and Ajay's skin crawls.

“We thought she was just pissed at us for what went down on Saturday, but she hasn’t shown up all week to watch Ashley. Hasn’t answered her phone. Neighbors haven’t seen a lick of her,” Paul's voice slowly sinks into a broken husk of its deep, abrasive former self.

Ajay can hear the exhaustion in every word, the uncertainty. _He doesn't know his daughter is gone._

“You sick fuck,” Ajay finds himself snarling, and Pagan tips his head up with a benign smile, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh, Paul, have you heard that, just now?”

“Who was that?’

“Ajay Ghale! I'm sure you remember him. Ishwari's beautiful feral boy,” Pagan smirks, and Ajay stiffens considerably at this, “seems he's intent on ruining my fun. So. I'll tell you what. Let's get straight to the point before you call me a cunt and hang up on me. I have your daughter here with me in Kyrat! She's made lovely collateral for your own personal presence here, De Pleur. But she's not you.”

Silence. A shaky breath, so close to the microphone on Paul's end that it fucks with the audio for a moment.

“Ashley is upstairs in bed. You’re lying,” he says, but his words are distant.

Measured, chosen with care.

“Come now Paul, you know I know. She's told me everything. The moment I bound and blindfolded her she sang like a canary, didn’t hide a thing. Such a shame, too. Do you know how much Sabal is offering for her?”

Ajay's stomach twists. The words coming from Pagan's mouth sound false, like a grandiose fairytale, but all the same he can believe they’re true. While he doesn’t want to, what good would he serve to be here listening in on this absurd exchange if not to learn this information?

“You kidnapped her?” Ajay whispers, his own voice overshadowed by Paul who _bellows_ almost the same exact thing into the phone, his voice cutting sharply across the room.

“You have _three_ weeks to get your sorry, drunken ass back to Kyrat, De Pleur. As a generous man who has a good history with you, I’ll give you this mercy. Three. Starting today. Every Saturday, she spends a weekend with Sabal. Or other _terrorists_. I'll make sure they have fun with her. I like you Paul. And by God I like your tempest of a daughter, unruly and outright terrifying as she is. _Don't. Fuck this up. Get back to your post. Ay-sap.”_

_Click._

Ajay sees white, and nothing but. White hot rage, burning at his throat and clawing at his fingers. Propelling him forward. White fuzzy cotton, stuffing his mouth and his lungs and his brain, fogging him down into irrationality. Pagan catches him by the wrists as he stumbles onto the bed on his knees, swiping and clawing and snarling like some sort of unhinged angry animal. He doesn’t hurt him, doesn’t retaliate. He holds Ajay steady by his arms above his head until he can see straight and his heartrate has calmed.

And as he opens his mouth to _finally, thankfully_ spew forth all of that pent-up _fuck you, sideways, backwards, yesterday, fuck you from before all this nonsense started,_ Pagan simply kisses him on the forehead. Like a child who’s thrown a tantrum. And with the calmest, almost loving smile on his face, he has but two words for the still-heaving _feral boy._

“Get. _Out_.”

And he’s gone, gone in a flash, scrubbing questions and experiences and anger from his mind. Pushing it all down, stuffing it all away. Trying to make sense of it and failing.

It takes one week and twenty-one hours for Ajay to accept that there are some things about Pagan and his reign that he _cannot_ and _will not_ stick his nose in, _ever_ again.


	6. Pressure Cooked

The air outside is cold, but in here it’s warm. Almost too warm, heating up with every breath she draws. She can feel her body alive and vibrating like the thrumming of a feverish heartbeat, connecting by an invisible string to _him_. Reaching for her, grasping at her, being grasped _by_ her. His eyes burn. With grief and anger, with lust and an insatiable thirst. He never speaks in this place with her, only acts. Lips crash, hands grab, they flurry in a fevered rush to collide the spaces that divide them out there in the cold. In here they are together.

He ducks his head down to her collarbones, biting and sucking lovebites across every bit of bared flesh he can find. She tangles her fingers in the short crop of his hair. His warm hands delve down between her legs, seeking. Searching. _Finding_. That cloyingly sweet friction as three long fingers slide inside her, sparking at the embers burning in the pit of her stomach. She tries to tug his head up by his hair, tries to get a good look at his face. It’s been so long since she’s really seen it. _He curls his fingers in response, sending a shudder down her spine and—_

-

It’s morning. Bright and early, sun barely up outside. Vanya is heaving beneath the snarl of the downy comforter she’s gotten herself tangled in. Her hands are trembling, her body is _hot_. She’s prickling with static electricity just beneath her skin.

_Another dream about him._

That same fleeting image, accompanied with the phantom ache of that touch from just a week ago, flickers past the front of her mind like a teaser trailer for her shame. She can’t seem to let it go. Let _him_ go. That little, burning sun she’s become so familiar with wells up in her chest again just like it has almost every morning for the past week, and in a fit of desperation she balls her fist in her pillow and hurls it across the room.

It collides with the mostly empty chest of drawers with a resounding rattle and slumps to the floor, puffing out a few feathers in defeat. She stares at it, long and hard, and wills herself to fall back to sleep again. Of course, sleep never comes, and so she gets an early start on her day.

Vanya has slept really only three or four hours a night over the past week, interrupted nearly constantly by anxiety or dreams like this. It was one drunken moment. They were releasing pent-up stress. Up there in the plane, with hours ahead of them and hours behind them, things were... _warped_. That was all it had been and nothing more. But as much as she tried to assure herself of this, there was the King, starring in her dreams, leaving her hot and bothered early in the mornings.

And absolutely exhausted.

The palace is an interesting labyrinth of rooms and halls, coiling in on itself in such a meandering fashion that it’s no wonder time seems to move slowly here. She’s spent her waking hours exploring the place, and doing naught much else. Mentally cataloguing every turn and major landmark indoors and out. The staff have been accommodating, and Ajay, though more or less reserved in his conversational skills, has gone out of his way to make her feel at home.

It had taken him only two days to manage to get her together a decently sized if not plain wardrobe. A handful of tee-shirts, a few pairs of jeans, and underwear he insisted was chosen and approved by a female member of the staff. Not that she’d have cared at this point, especially not after he took off so suddenly after the small-clothes incident her first morning here. Mysteriously enough, her original tee she’d worn over from America seems to have up and vanished though the rest of her clothes have returned laundered and folded with the rest of her new things. And she’s heard tell from Ajay that Pagan was not pleased to hear that she had to wear his things until she’d gotten her own.

-

Vanya finds herself pushed compulsorily from the palace just after breakfast by a rather flustered looking Gary. Apparently Pagan has decided to take his meal in the dining room for the first time since his return, which means he wants her out of sight and out of mind. And it’s such that she finds herself pacing angrily about the grounds just outside the side door, trying to listen in on the conversations inside.

She can hear him, oh so casual, oh so cheery like he hasn’t been hiding from everyone and everything and avoiding her questions for a _god damned_ week, but she can’t make out a lick of what he’s saying. Perhaps he’s told everyone else in the palace what’s going on in America. Anyone she asks, however, tells her they have no idea what she’s on about. Paul could be dead for all she knows, and she’s stuck in purgatory surrounded by mountains and lunatics, incense and expensive antiques.

The horrible thing is that she’ll let it happen. Just the same as it had been in America, so it shall be in Kyrat. She’s been a pushover her entire life. Perhaps that’s why she’d felt so liberated exploring herself with Pagan, dabbling in facets of herself she’d never known existed before.

She tries the door handle. Someone has locked it. Probably Gary, meaning well for someone’s sake. Probably not hers, if she’s being honest with herself. She’s the unwanted guest here, the stowaway who’s holed up like a rat and lashing out at anyone who comes close.

_Stuck out here with the forests and the mountains, then._

While their watch is as silent as the King’s, at least she’s left the good kind of breathless by the view of them. Her favorite morning activity has been to take a stroll down the winding front drive and back, only ever as far as where the Blackhawk first dropped them off a week ago. She hasn’t tested her boundaries to see how far they’ll let her wander. She’s seen Ajay come and go a million times at all hours of the day, but he’s never offered to take her with him so there must be unspoken rules about her captivity here.

Vanya must be a guest of the _palace_ and not the entirety of Kyrat. And what a gilded cage it is, so stifling with its ever-furling columns of incense smoke and priceless pieces of yesteryear, and an inexplicable amount of Chinese artwork.

She finds herself in front of the small outbuilding she’s passed by every morning on her way down the drive, and this morning it seems all the more tempting. If only because she lacks a jacket, and she’s sure it’s slightly warmer in there than it must be out here with the wind whipping past her and the chilly mountain peaks staring harshly down at her. The structure is newer than the palace itself, though the architecture mirrors its far older ancestor. On the bright crimson door is a shimmering golden mandala, glittering in the early morning sun and catching her eye.

Tentatively she presses her palm to the warm painted wood and it gives way with no resistance. A sweeping gust of sweet, fragrant air rushes out, filling her lungs with the scent of flowers and candle smoke, and old tapestries. The small room is filled with the tenderly loved and cared-for accoutrements of what she assumes to be a shrine at first glance. Vases filled to the brim with crimson poppies and unlit incense, slow-burning candles scattered on the floor and on pedestals along the red-draped walls. Chains of bells hang against the curtains, chiming softly in the breeze she’s let in from outside.

There along the back wall, lit up like a beacon, perhaps meant to be the only truly illuminated thing in the room, is a portrait. Hand-painted. A tiny girl, no older than a year, maybe two. Clutching at a rattle, smocked in pink brocade with her black hair pulled into two tiny, almost playful pigtails. The picture of innocence and youth, she looks so strange and out of place up there on the wall amidst the otherwise morbid gravity of the room.

It’s then that Vanya sees the true occupants of this little shrine. This _mausoleum_. Two urns, side by side, nearly identical in size and make, set tenderly like an afterthought beneath this hand-painted portrait. And beneath it all, carved into the stone clear as day in English, of all languages, she reads all she needs to read:

_In Loving Memory of Lakshmana Min – 1988 – 1989_

She can’t help herself as she rushes forward, hands reaching out to touch and to feel. But she stops short. She can’t bring herself to so much as brush a fingertip over the shiny metal, or breeze a palm over the cloth beneath them. All she can do is stare, and soak in what she sees. The slightly smaller of the two urns has nothing but an ebony peacock engraved into it, much like that beautiful brooch on Pagan’s lapel she can remember running her fingers over as she hung his coat up in Paul’s home. It’s the same peacock she lifts her eyes to see is painted onto who must be little Lakshmana’s shirt in her portrait.

What a beautiful little girl. She can see her father’s features in her even at such a young age. _Only a year old..._ And Vanya understands now, if only a little, some of that cynicism and bitterness Pagan is so quick to pepper like buckshot to the wind. But this little one is only part of the bigger picture, and she has so many questions. Was she sick? Or was it an accident? Where is her mother? Does Pagan have a wife, then? She doesn’t remember a ring on his finger. _Had their mistake really been far more grievous than she’d thought?_ Is this why he won’t come near her? Perhaps the clothes had been a silent message, so blatantly there for her to understand and she’d missed it all along. But then her eyes catch the gleam of the other urn sat beside Lakshmana’s, and she looks down again at its more burnished finish.

_Ishwari Ghale – 1968 – 2014_

Just last year.

 _Oh, Ajay..._ She thought she’d heard him utter something about his mother so slightly under his breath when she’d come out with those ill-fitting silks on. This leads to twice as many questions, but now she has at least one answer, one thing under her belt.

Here amidst the sudden crushing guilt and sorrow that doesn’t seem like it belongs to her, she feels she needs to run. These feelings aren’t hers. They’re borrowed from two men she barely knows, connected to each other and now to her in a way she hardly understands. She’s seen something she hasn’t been meant to see. And her feet are moving from under her without her permission then, propelling her back out from the shrine and into the blinding sunlight. She has to shield her eyes as the angle of the sun hits her wrong, burns her retinas.

Vanya makes it no more than four or five strides from slamming the door shut before inadvertently colliding with a strong, broad chest, nearly knocking noses with this person she’s collided with.

 _“Ohshitfuck_ sorry, so sorry!” she gasps, stumbling not to topple over.

_“What did you touch?”_

Her breath catches in her chest as she drops her hands away from her face and tips her chin up to meet his gaze. Surprisingly, he doesn’t look angry. Plain as day, the first thing she sees on the King’s face, the first time she’s seen him in _seven days_ , since their bitter parting just down the hill – the first thing she sees is _worry_. And not just a concerned pout, no, Pagan looks _anxious_ , and he doesn’t look like he knows what to do with this feeling. Like she’s just intruded upon something so deeply personal that he feels violated, and that must not be something such a private man is used to.

“Genuinely, nothing. I’m so sorry, I had no idea what was in there,” she urges, pressing her palm to her chest to catch her breath.

“Must you stick your nose where it doesn’t belong, girl?!” Pagan barks, “ _What_ did you touch?!”

“Pagan I—nothing, for fuck’s sake. I walked in, I looked around, I felt _fucking horrible_ about it, _thank you_ , and I came back out! I am _so_. Sorry.”

And just like that, he deflates like a pin has been stuck in him. His eyes soften, crinkling at the corners with a surprising amount of mirth, and she grimaces in confusion. Ever-unpredictable, this man...

“Forgive me, it’s just that I wouldn’t usually welcome guests into my daughter’s mausoleum of all places. You understand, I’m sure, that I feel quite _intruded upon_ ,” he waves his hand dismissively, “But I forgive you. I suppose you’d have found it one way or another, as often as you’re out strolling the grounds, hm? I really should start locking the most important doors around here...”

Vanya shuffles on her feet, uncomfortable under his gaze like it’s their first meeting all over again. And, in a way, it is. On their first pretense, he’d been Paul’s boss, a man from Hong Kong and an old family friend. Just a simple someone. Now she stands face to face with the King of Kyrat, a reputation much larger and more intimidating that she really even knows what to do with. Someone with history she could probably research if given access to the internet, but they’ve taken particular care to deny her any electronics here besides a TV and an MP3 player.

And certainly, she could ask him herself, if he weren’t avoiding her at every waking hour. But clearly, he’s been watching her, or at least having someone observe her habits, if he knows about her morning excursions.

“I won’t bring it up. Won’t even mention it again, honest to God.”

“You know you don’t have to ask to leave the grounds, Vanya,” Pagan says, completely disregarding what she’s sworn, “Nobody is holding you hostage here.”

_Except you, you know. I can’t damn well leave without your help putting me on a flight home, Your Highness..._

“With all due respect, I’ve felt a little trapped here, _Your Majesty,_ ” Vanya says, rolling her eyes.

All she earns in an earnest chuckle from the King.

“Still Pagan.”

“Oh, you’re not King of Kyrat, now? Still not answering any questions? You’ve got me caged up like a fucking bird and you haven’t told me a thing about Paul, or Laura or Ashley, _anything_. Nobody knows what I’m talking about when I ask them, and you, _Pagan_ , have been implicitly absent,” she growls, feeling that hot temper rising up in her chest and savoring it with zeal, letting it flourish, “Not that I’ve minded the space from you, not at all. But Jesus Christ, I think you owe me some answers. It’s been a fucking week for shit’s sake!”

 _“Language_ , Vanya! There are children in earshot!” Pagan gasps, feigning offence, but she can see the ache in his eyes behind that wall of defense, brought on by the slip of his tongue.

 _“Oh my god_ , fucking cold,” she pales, hardlining, “have you lost your mind?”

“A long time ago. Right in that very mausoleum, actually. Now, moving on. What do you say we go and have ourselves a little excursion?”

“...you’re joking.”

“Ajay told me you’ve been feeling cooped up. I figured we could use the space to talk, and you’d like to see some more than just boring old palace walls and windy mountain drives.”

 _“I_ told you I’m feeling cooped up. Just now. Seconds ago,” Vanya raises an eyebrow, “Since when do you want to _talk_ to me?”

“You also told me, seconds ago, _dúshé_ , that you have quite a few questions for me. If I promise to answer them will you _get in the fucking car and come with me?”_ Pagan presses, gritting his teeth and pinching the bridge of his nose.

Vanya considers for a long moment, and finds no drawbacks. Answers and a new excursion sound far better than going back inside that stuffy palace and back up to her room for more alone time.

“Are you going to shove me on another plane and ship me somewhere else?” She asks, trying not to grin.

“This time, no. I promise.”

-

 _Utkarsh_ is their destination today. The name sounds funny on her tongue when she repeats it back to Pagan in question, peering out the window of the jeep as they rattle down the long, winding drive from the Royal Fortress. She's told it's a scenic drive, and the prospect excites her. Her wandering eyes never leave the forests or the mountains as she curls in on herself in the backseat opposite the King, roving over every building and structure and feature she can feast her gluttonous gaze on. Pagan sits quietly beside her, idly swiping at something or other on his cell phone, and she can feel his gaze drift to her occasionally out of the corner of her eye. He’s watching her, perhaps to gauge her reaction to the world she finally gets to see.

She hasn't expected to see that his country looks so _old_. Not just the architecture or the land, but the very fabric of the place itself. Tired, worn out civilians with wrinkled faces who flinch in fear as they pass by houses and run-down outposts. Buildings practically falling apart, some blown apart by some old war she’s never learned about, or battle never listed in a textbook. Everything is in a state of ruin, such a stark contrast to the lavish expanse of Pagan’s mountainside palace. It’s hard for her to understand how he can live so extravagantly when it seems the people she passes live in poverty.

“Is it like this everywhere?” Vanya mutters, pressing her hand to the cool glass of the jeep’s tinted window.

“Even before my reign. I haven’t been much help in the matter,” Pagan says, and she’s surprised at how candid he is, “I’ve got good news. Paul is doing well, all things considered. There’s been a bit of a shake-up, but they’re safe as far as I’ve heard.”

“When did you talk to him last?” she asks, chest tightening, “Is he okay, does he miss me? I’m sure he doesn’t, but, you know.”

Pagan says nothing for a long moment, and she assumes all the answers she needs from his silence.

“Terribly. He misses you terribly, Vanya. But if all goes well, you should be back home soon,” he says after some consideration, “I’ve sent some of my best men undercover back to the states to help him work things out.”

Up the road out the front windshield she can see movement, several bodies bustling through the brush, and she’s not sure if the driver has noticed the other civilians in the road. He doesn’t seem to hesitate or apply the brakes, and so she figures he must know what he’s doing around these people. They’re all armed, but then most of the people she’s seen along the way have been. It’s an alarming thought to be sure, but it’s easy to stuff down into her subconscious when she reminds herself just who she’s in the presence of. Surely the extra men on the road are security detail for the King’s one-vehicle convoy, maybe some of them are undercover in those blue denims instead of the red she’s grown to recognize. _Smart..._

It should feel nice to hear that her father misses her, but something about the words coming from Pagan’s lips make her feel bitter and sore. Just as much as Pagan is to blame for a large portion of this mess, Paul carries his own blame. He’s been lying to his family for two years, has brought this monarch into their home under horribly false pretenses, clearly risking life and limb to entertain his employer. Which still begs the question-

“What did Paul do for you, King Min?” she pipes up, finishing her stream of thought aloud like it’s been on the tip of her tongue all along, this burning question.

“Ah, I figured that would have been the first question you’d asked,” Pagan says, nose in his phone again, the glow lighting up his high cheekbones and illuminating all the lines of aging on his freckled face.

“Do I get an answer then?”

_“OHSHIT--”_

-

 _A heavy concussion, one loud bang. Deafening, shattering, earth-quaking._ Smoke, dirt, and _blood._ A ringing in her ears that rattles her to the core. She’s upside-down. Or sideways. Not upright. Rattled, jarred, dizzy, _scared_. Too fucking stunned to feel anything more than bleary, muzzy emotions shuttered behind walls and walls of thick, heavy cotton smothering her senses. She can’t even feel her body, can’t connect with her limbs or her lungs, or her eyes to open them, or her mouth to _scream._

Slowly, so slowly, the gauze stuffing her mind begins to dissipate. The ringing in her ears cross-fades with the light percussive patter of small-arms fire coming from any number of directions she can’t even make out left from right. Pagan is yelling something somewhere off to her left, his voice all but a flanged murmur through the fog. Vanya gets one eye open, managing to find the will to scrub at her face, and her hands come away with blood and hair stuck to them, bits of unidentifiable flesh. The sight of it is enough to shock her out of her stupor. She retches, forcing her hands forward into the seat in front of her as though she can throw them away like they’re not attached to her arms.

 _“Vanya!_ Open the fucking door!” Pagan snarls, moving into view and hovering over her, wiping blood from a wound on his forehead.

_So much blood, his and, well, that poor man’s._

She’s been thrown onto her back by whatever’s happened. There’s blood on the ceiling, smoke inside the vehicle. Choking them both. Bits of the driver, splattered on the seats - what’s left of him and the gaping hole in his corner of the vehicle, anyway... Vanya tries in vain to reach above her head and jostle the handle of the door, but it won’t budge. Pagan leans across her, so close she nearly eats a mouthful of his magenta suit stained red someone else’s blood, and even with a heavy shoulder he can’t get the thing to budge. As Pagan’s head rises above the horizon line of the windows there comes a racket of renewed fire, bullets burrowing into the metal of the jeep’s carriage. Aimed at the King who’s just become a sitting duck in the sights of their apparent assailants.

 _“Fuck!”_ Pagan hisses, dropping down on top of her, covering the back of his head with one arm protectively.

She watches with wide eyes, gawking up into his perturbingly close face as droplets of his own blood run down the tip of his nose and patter onto her face, sickeningly hot against her skin.

“Ohmygodwhat’sgoingon,” Vanya wheezes, finally finding her breath, “Holy shit what was that what’s going on?!”

“You’re fine, dear, just keep your head down for a moment!” he commands, keeping a casual tone as if this is nothing at all for him, “Cover your eyes for me. Both arms. _Good, hang on.”_

Anxiety wells in her throat, but she does as she’s asked, not as though she has much choice in the matter anyway. Vanya gets one arm up over her head, and as she wrenches the other from where it’s been pinned against the seat beneath her, her knuckles brush along Pagan’s arm where he braces himself against the seat just beside her. Instinctively she balls a fist in the bloody sleeve of his jacket with that free hand, just looking for some sort of gravity to weigh her down, tie her to Earth for a moment. To quell the anxiety threatening to choke her alive if the smoke doesn’t first.

Pagan’s weight shifts hard to his other arm, the one she isn’t clutching, and he draws up the comm handset, tapping some sort of Morse code into the side button. He gets something into his hand once he’s hung up the receiver, clutching it tightly. She hears it shift in his palm, and then he leans back again, and forward.

_“Hang on!”_

He lunges with the thing in his hands, and glass shatters above her head, falling over them both. He’s broken the window, they have an escape route. Fantastic, but it doesn’t compensate for the _fucking gunmen outside._

Pagan hauls himself up and slithers over the door-frame and out the broken window without a second thought, nearly kicking her on the way out. For a moment she thinks he’s forgotten her, crippled with fear and frozen in place as she is. She half expects to hear renewed bouts of gunshots, killing him on the other side without hesitation, but the world outside is eerily quiet. He must be shielded by the jeep where he’s landed.

“...Pagan?!” Vanya cries out, her breath catching as she feels the hyperventilation start to well up in her lungs.

Now is _absolutely not_ the time to be having a panic attack.

“Twelve, _dúshé,_ ” she hears Pagan hiss over the top of the door, “My fucking luck! Leave it to the fucking terrorists to send me a dozen men. Six to one... Come now, up and out! Let’s go!”

The only thing that compels her to scramble from the jeep is the sickening groan the thing makes as a hearty belch of black smoke erupts anew from the engine block. She topples to the ground at Pagan’s feet, landing in the churned-up dirt with a pathetic yelp, and he crouches above her with a placid expression on his face. For all the _dire urgency_ of this situation, he looks as though this is just another fucking morning for him. He’s all but forgotten the gash on his forehead, letting the blood clot on its own. By now his left eye is nearly swimming in it, and he wipes at it with two fingers in frustration just to keep it from getting irritated.

“Pagan _what_ is going _on?!_ What happened?!”

“The Golden Path happened, Vanya. Always someone wants me dead, any more. Today they pulled the long straw,” Pagan grins lopsidedly, then cusses as a single warning fire rings off in the tree line.

Someone shouts in a language she doesn’t understand, but she does gather the tone. Angry, commanding. Barking out orders. Footsteps and bodies brush through the grass and gravel, she can hear them moving.

“That, Vanya, was the kill order. _We don’t have much time._ Their Havildar has ordered them to surround the perimeter. They’re all armed, and they won’t discriminate between me and you,” the King says as he ducks his head down, growing more serious as he holds her focus with steady eye contact, “Have you fired a gun before?”

“What?! No,” Vanya hisses, “I’m not murdering someone!”

_“Apane haath oopar karo! -maut ka saamana karo!”_

Someone nearby, much closer than before. Close enough she can make out those distinct words, so harshly spat. Regardless of their meaning, they’re hateful. Fear chills her spine, shaking her to her core. Before she can have much use of being useless, she finds a gun being shoved into her hands roughly. Pagan must have pulled it from the front of the jeep and battered out the window with it. It’s a standard issue rifle she’s seen on his Royal Guard around the palace. Not that she has any idea how to handle this weapon of war.

“Pagan _no! I can’t!”_

“You’re going to have to, so help me fucking God, or neither of us are crawling out of here alive!” Pagan presses, scowling down at her.

“Like hell! I can’t kill anyone, I don’t want blood on my hands!” Vanya snaps, and above that well of anxiety she feels her old friend, that hot sun of rage rising up in her chest.

“Then allow me to be the one to put you down, _cau hai,_ ” he snarls back, shoving the gun harder in her hands by the stock.

She cracks, pushing back and blowing up in his face. It feels good, vibrating through her in spikes of adrenaline.

“ _You want me to risk my fucking life for you?!_ Is that it?! Jump in front of a handful of lunatics to save your sorry ass?”

“Jesus Christ, _yes,_ girl. Precisely. Feed into that rage, good! That’s what I wanted to see! Now! Come here, let me show you. Hold it just like this, hands here. Just the tip of your finger on the trigger, but not until you’re ready to fire. Yes, just like that... Keep the stock nice and tight on your – got it. Keep the sights on whatever you want to hit, orange arrow on the target, and squeeze gently. Safety is here. Right here,” Pagan’s hands draw up and he guides her trembling hands over a small latch, “this drops the magazine. Like so. Slam it back in with force. Try again. _Harder._ Yes! Mind the lift of the barrel, she’ll try to raise on you when you sweep. Keep her tame. Now. Run me back through all of that.”

_Was any of that English?_

Vanya stares, dumbfounded, and before she can follow through with her instructions the Havildar calls out from the road. A volley of warning shots fires into the air, causing even Pagan to duck his head instinctively.

“No time. Stay on your knees if you can, and _keep moving_. Keep firing, and keep track of your shots. Thirty to a magazine, remember that,” he says as he scrambles to his feet, making for the back of the wreckage of the jeep, “There’s extra mags back here. Stay by them, you’ll need them!”

“Thirty?! Alright?! What do I do?!” She asks, “Where will you be?”

“I’ll take up the _Dushka_ there. All you need to do is not fucking shoot me. Take down anyone you can. Just keep them off me and I’ll take care of the rest. You’ll be fine. We’ll be fine,” Pagan insists, and god fucking help her, she’s starting to believe him.

Vanya latches onto that tight, hot burning fury in her chest, letting it burn through her like fuel. She doesn’t dare let herself scan the tree-line or look for these terrorists among the bushes. Not yet. Her eyes trace Pagan’s position as he hauls himself up into the mounted gun, and she snorts to herself. A strange reaction to be having in such a tense situation. A giant metal murder weapon called _sweetie_ , if things couldn’t get any more absurd.

The King’s easily recognizable shock of blond hair is like an easy target, and the moment he raises his bloodied head inside the contraption of the mounted gun their assailants lay loose, honing in their fire on his vulnerable position.

_Fuck, fuck fuck. No time, fuck._

“VANYA FUCKING SHOOT THEM _WHATAREYOUDOING?!”_ Pagan snarls, yanking the bolt back on the big gun and squeezing the trigger.

She’s jarred by the sudden skull-rattling percussive thud of the thing, and she can’t remember if she’s loaded a bullet in the chamber. With fumbling hands, she pulls the bolt back on her own rifle and ejects a shiny brass cartridge into the dirt. _Shit._ Twenty-nine. One look at in the dirt only doubles that rage aching in her chest, and as she tightens the stock in her shoulder she can finally breathe. She sucks in, holds her breath, braces against the side of the jeep, and pulls the trigger.

_Fuck._

She flicks the safety off, stomping her foot and jumping as a bullet whines past her, too close for comfort, and then squeezes the trigger. Just as Pagan has warned her, the muzzle leaps up as she sweeps across the enemy line, and she has to fight to keep it level with the horizon. She’s not even sure if she’s hit anyone, or if it’s all just Pagan. Probably just him.

_Two, one. Eject._

The thrill of it seeps into her, is infectious. Everything in the world boils down to just Vanya and her adrenaline. To the heat of the overtaxed barrel flushing her blood-soaked cheeks and the pounding thrumming of the Dushka in her chest, above her head. Thirty shots, dropping men in blue denim, then a magazine. Slamming one home with a cathartic _whack_ of her fist and starting anew in a rhythm that flows through her like electricity. She feels alive, she feels whole, she feels... New.

Soon they’re down. All of them. Somehow. And for all the world, she just wants to keep firing. And fuck if she does, just to say she did. She’s a woman on fire, lit from the inside by an entirely new blazing inferno. A new pyre that won’t be dimmed. Pagan has to scramble down from the jeep to stop her from wasting the last magazine in triumph, has to wrestle the tired weapon from her hands.

“I fucking did it,” Vanya gasps, a laugh tearing at her throat, “Holy god almighty.”

Pagan tosses the spent rifle into the back of the jeep and narrows his eyes off into the forest.

“Hold on, girl, not quite yet. Hear that?” He lowers his voice, “Someone’s still alive...”

Cautiously, the King treads out to the edge of the brush, and when he recognizes that they’re not in any danger he stoops to the survivor’s level to inspect him.

“The Havildar, Vanya! His lucky day, I think! Oh, my dear man, you are in for a _treat!”_ Pagan smiles, and she finds herself significantly less bothered now by his benign cheeriness despite the situation at hand.

In fact, she laughs aloud. She can’t help it. Something about the two of them, both soaked in blood – their own and other people’s - high on shooting guns and running on adrenaline, something about it all is absolutely hilarious. The culmination of this week’s emotional strain has caught up to her full-stop, and soon she’s nearly in giddy hysterics, clutching at her stomach. Pagan reaches into the Havildar’s coat pocket ever so curiously, withdrawing a box of cigarettes plastered with just the smallest splash of blood.

As he withdraws one and lights it between his lips, she can’t help but to notice that plastered on the back of the box is a _ridiculously_ cheery portrait of Pagan himself emblazoned with bold words – FIT FOR A KING! He seems to sense her gaze, and he turns the box in his hands as she wheezes, observing for himself just what’s pushed her to her limit.

“Christ...” Pagan mutters, and a smile cracks at his lips, “Eric, you ugly fool.”

“--KING, MY GOD,” Vanya chirps, gasping for breath, and soon they’re both laughing though neither knows why.

Pagan rises unsteadily to his feet, pottering back over to join her against the smoldering wreckage of their jeep, and he leans back against it with a heavy sigh, chuckling his way into breathlessness.

“Ah... I’m sorry, I have no idea what got into me,” Vanya snickers, covering her mouth as she tries to bring herself down from her teetering high.

“Adrenaline,” Min says knowingly, “Second only to cocaine. Truly my drug of choice. Fucking thrill, isn’t it?”

Distantly, her ears pick up the whirring of a helicopter. Pagan perks up, a grin spreading across his bloody, dirt-caked face.

“That’ll be our backup, only twenty minutes late in the fucking Blackhawk. I promise you I will make good on my promise to castrate Kamran with a spoon someday if he keeps this shit up. If we’d have died,” he sighs, and then he’s up on his feet again in one fluid move, “We’ll need to get some information out of our lovely friend the Havildar over there, and I know just where to take him. Vanya, I think it’s just about time you find out why I want your father to come back to work, and _what he does here for me.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HUGE THANKS in this chapter to Fuzziestpuppy for helping me write this action sequence. Never in my LIFE written anything about fucking guns or explosions, and she stepped in and wrote me something beautiful as a gift to help me get my head in the right place. I couldn't have made it through this without her sage guidance. THANK YOU!


	7. Interrogative Interlude

One man, Kamran, and a field medic. That’s all they’ve been given and all they can get, apparently. _What shit-stain rallied the troops to the King’s aid this afternoon?_ Vanya has somehow managed to escape without any serious injuries, save for a few cuts and bruises. Pagan, however, would very much enjoy the still-bleeding wound on his head seeing a good tending-to. But the Havildar splayed out on the floor of the helicopter serves a more pressing case for attention.

He’s not bleeding out from anything too serious, no major arteries hit by gunshot wounds. In fact, it doesn’t seem he’s been shot at all. Is the man simply playing dead? Shocked into submission? Given up on fighting at the sight of his glorious King bearing down on him from behind the shining, roaring barrel of a _Dushka?_

“Why is that word so funny to you?” Pagan finds himself asking aloud as he stares down at the medic whose name he’s never bothered to learn, working away at the Havildar’s vitals.

“Hm?” Vanya chirps, sounding like she’s come out of some trance.

She’s been watching out the windows since they took off, deeper in thought and wound up tight by some frenetic energy that almost _arouses_ him to watch. Like she’s crawled out of some cocoon and spread new wings, but she’s still getting used to them, learning what they are and what they’re called.

“Dushka, the blasted gun? Have you never heard of one before?”

“Oh. That’s... what my mom called me. It means sweetheart in Russian,” she said, turning her eyes to him, wide with restlessness, “Are they all called that? Or just that one? I know people like to name their guns.”

“Oh, no, it’s a common name. I couldn’t even try to pronounce what the fucking things are really called. Dushka is a bastardization at best,” he admits, folding his hands in his lap.

They return to their silence, something he’s become quite used to. Much as he’s gone out of his way to avoid even looking at the woman up until this morning, there’s something comforting about being near her again.

_She’d blow your skull out with your Beretta if she knew you slept better with the smell of her shirt pressed up against your face, Pagan._

His hands clench in the filthy legs of his trousers and he stiffens considerably. Things have been quiet, he’s been doing so _fucking well_. Vanya hears him hiss, turns her head with a curious, predatory tilt. She smirks, just barely, and looks him over once in his disheveled state. Hair astray, kohl smeared, clothes ruined. As though there’s something to be seen of him torn up and covered in his own blood and Dhruv’s viscera – _poor man_.

They’re dropping altitude, descending on their destination, and the spitfire woman turns her head back casually to watch from the windows again. Clearly, the scenery is twice as interesting as the dying man and political assassination plot unraveling inside the cabin... He’ll never understand her.

_“Dusha,”_ she mutters, and through her reflection in the window he briefly locks eyes with her.

“Your pronunciation is a bit off, dear,” Pagan raises an eyebrow, trying to ignore the strange chill in his spine as he looks away to watch the medic get the Havildar up and into a seat now that he’s more or less awake.

“No. Dusha. It’s what I thought you were calling me at first. It means soul in Russian,” she explains, and he can see her fists clenching and releasing like she’s trying to work something out.

That would explain why she’d been so forward with him, then. Thinking he was making passes on her, being strangely romantic with her. And now that he really thinks on it, trying desperately not to let himself get too caught up in things, _perhaps he was a little interested even then._ Superficially, really, and maybe only after she’d gone so far as to invade his personal space. He hasn’t realized until this moment that perhaps he likes the challenge of it all...

_You want someone to tell you no? Fuck, you’ve found her._

“Why are you keeping him alive if he’s just tried to kill us?” Vanya asks, bringing him out of his shaken thoughts, and he’s mercifully spared from having to detail anything as Kamran touches them down smoothly on the expansive front lawn of De Pleur’s compound.

“Simple, _dusha_ , he has answers for us. And how fortunate for us that he’s the one in charge of this whole ordeal. We’ll likely get all we could ever want to know out of him,” Pagan grins, but there’s panic in his eyes that he hopes she doesn’t catch as she stands to follow him from the chopper.

It was a slip of the tongue, nothing more. At least, that’s what he’ll tell himself...

-

It’s been one year since his last visit to Paul De Pleur’s home away from home. The last time he’d graced these halls there had been quite a bit more fuss, and quite a lot more risk on the table. Blood on his pen, an extra guest at the dinner table, two guests of honor – one in a burnished silver urn, nothing but ashes – and a new resident in the palace. A future King under his wing, a bright future ahead of them both. Before the Golden Path had come in and fucked it all up for poor Dipshit. Doorknob... whoever.

Now the compound is overrun with weeds and primates. The cherry trees will be in blossom soon, and the landscaping could use a touch-up after nearly three months of activity here, but all in all the place doesn’t look too bad for being deprived of its owner. It’s a wonder Sabal hasn’t sent any of his men to try to wrestle the place from the small cadre of Royal Army they’ve kept stationed here just to keep their hold on the place. In fact, it’s a wonder any of these idiots have chosen to stay here, bored out of their minds no doubt, guarding an empty ghost of a place when they could be out doing something far more interesting.

“Welcome to your father’s home, Vanya,” Pagan says, clasping his hands behind his back as he trails behind his men taking up the lead.

The Havildar looks worse for wear, fading in and out of consciousness as he’s dragged backwards by his cuffed wrists, but all the same they’ll make this effort. It’s the least he can do. At best, it’ll be an amusing way to spend his afternoon. Better than paperwork and finance reports.

“Paul lived here? It’s huge. Like some kind of temple,” Vanya says, and he can hear the unadulterated aw in her voice.

“Extravagant, I know. We had it built just for him as a reward for his promotion to Governor. Perk of his new title. He really does have quite a fetish for my country,” he muses, looking up at the open-air balcony, the curtains fluttering in the breeze.

Vanya says nothing, merely follows close behind him on his coattails, honed in less on the scenery and more on her father’s home. He glances back occasionally as they make their way down a short series of hallways further into the belly of the house, keeping an eye on the wild woman. She’s unhinged almost entirely, he can see it in the way her hands tremble, her gait lilts. Her eyes flick here and there, soaking in little unseen details he can’t even begin to try to search for himself. She’s likely still running off the tail end of their adrenaline high, with blood on her hands and a kill count behind her now.

And that’s something he can’t really ever breach to her himself, not unprovoked. That for a moment, up there behind the sights of the Dushka, he’d seen an opportunity to let her gun down a man herself, and he’d let her have it. Just as easily, he could have fired off a clean shot over her shoulder and taken out the fucker without a second thought. But he’d hesitated, and he’d watched her whip around and, with a surprising amount of calculation, take the rebel down in a few haphazard shots. It had been dirty work, not a precise kill or a clean shot, but she’d done it all on her own without a thought in the world.

A week ago, that same woman had been laid out on a seat in the grips of an anxiety attack, hyperventilating over the prospect of seventeen hours stuck in the air with him. And in the course of one day, one life or death situation, Pagan had managed somehow to inadvertently shove her through a needle-narrow pressure cooker and squeeze out some sort of lethal creature on the other side. A diamond in the rough, perhaps. _Carbon in, killer out_. He’d stopped counting how many she hit after that, but Vanya had certainly contributed more than he’d care to admit. Perhaps she’d only taken down that single blue denim all on her own, but that’s a body behind her now. A wife and child Sabal will have to write home about and one less mouth to feed in this civil war Vanya doesn’t even understand.

All because he asked her to, all because he _told her to_.

“In here, My King,” Kamran barks up ahead, holding open a door for the two of them.

In their dawdling as he’s let Vanya linger behind, touching the walls and exploring the nondescript basement hallways of Paul’s home, Pagan’s men have gone ahead with the Havildar and gotten things set up for him. _Perfect._

“This way, Miss Rotenberg. I think you’ll find all the answers you want through here,” Pagan says, sweeping through the door and stepping aside to allow her full view of the interior.

He can’t help but watch as she stumbles into the room, brown eyes drawing wide, slowly wider, never blinking as she soaks in what she sees. An intimate room meant for observation, lined at the top on two sides by glass windows and cushioned seating. For watching, _enjoying_. Just in from the door is a well-loved wooden chair, worn out by De Pleur’s frequent use. Lining the wall are shelves and boxes of instruments and tools, some old, some new. All of them used for purposes she can certainly infer rather quickly on closer observation.

His men exit the room, and Kamran takes station just outside the door as he’s been instructed to do.

Vanya turns slowly to take it all in, the puzzle pieces not quite fitting. He can see it hasn’t clicked yet. Her eyes lock with his for a moment, questioning, and before he can open his mouth to guide her in the right direction their prisoner wakes in his restraints with a throaty cry, lulling forward. It’s enough noise to draw Vanya’s attention away from their tense staring contest, and Pagan watches all the breakers switch as she lays eyes on the man cuffed to the draconian metal rack against the wall.

“...ohmygod,” she utters quietly, but it’s not a declaration of disgust.

_“Inspired by the plight of Kyrat, Governor Harmon fell in love with our people and customs. He has abandoned his American homeland to spend time here, wanting nothing more than to find peace in the South through brave negotiations with the Golden Path terrorists,”_ Pagan says, reading blandly from that boring little propaganda guidebook he’s had nearly no hand in creating save for the foreword, having found one left on the table just inside the door, “A load of shit. Paul started here in the Royal Army. Worked his way up through the ranks _quickly._ So I promoted him to Governor of the lowlands. He keeps people in line here. Well, he did before those fucking terrorists crashed one of his little parties and sent him packing. I’ll never know how he escaped before they killed him.”

The Havildar thrashes in his restraints as Vanya strolls over to him curiously, looking him up and down, and before she can get too close Pagan lifts a small handset from the table beside Paul’s chair and flicks the switch on it. The metal rack lights up with electricity, shocking the man into a rigid, shrieking arch, and he flicks it off again in an instant before it can do any real damage. The wild woman is frozen in place, fingers twitching, her breathing speeding up considerably. There’s hunger in her eyes, right there beside the surprise.

“Paul is a cruel man, Vanya. Isn’t that right-...what’s your name?” Pagan asks, stepping into the bright lamplight that shines down like a spotlight on his assailant.

The man heaves a shaky breath, gritting his teeth tightly, and stares right up into Pagan’s eyes. Silence, a challenge. And as if to _really_ test him, the fucker dares to spit in his face, right on the mess of dirt and dried blood. As though that should upset him.

_“Right._ Fuckstick, then. Lovely talk. We’ll get answers out of you yet, my friend.”

“Paul was a torturer?” Vanya asks, and he nearly jumps out of his skin for how close her voice is to his ear.

_This_ fucking game again, getting far too close far too quickly.

“De Pleur was the best we had. The secrets flowed like the blood. A shame that I’ll have to be the stand-in today. Fitting, though! You make an attempt on my life, I get to make several on yours in rapid succession. _That’s_ karma if ever I’ve been concerned,” Pagan grins, leaning in close to the Havildar’s face, smelling old cigarettes on his breath.

_“Fuck you, cunt,”_ his prisoner hisses, barely a whisper.

He’s afraid.

“What was that? I didn’t quite catch that. Come again?”

“Fuck-!”

He flips the current on once again, interrupting the man’s weak threats for a more fitting wail of pain, and behind him Vanya hisses through her teeth. Her hand flies out, snakes around his elbow, squeezes hard. She’s _enjoying this_ , the sick woman. The feel of her grasp on him stirs something at the back of his mind, and it takes him longer than he’s planned to turn the contraption back off again. Irritation prickles at him and he shakes off Vanya’s grasp, whipping back to reprimand her.

_“Don’t_ distract me, girl! Now,” Pagan huffs, turning back to the simpering mess of his prisoner, “I’m sure that hurt. You can thank Paul’s daughter for that. No, really. _Say fucking thank you.”_

Ever-stoic, still trying too hard to be the tough man, Fuckstick says nothing. Out of left field, Pagan goes for a more traditional approach, leaning in close and jamming his knee hard between the man’s spread legs. This does the trick, rewards him with a keening whine in his ear as the Havildar sags forward against his restraints, panting heavily.

“Abiral!” he chokes out, and Pagan pulls away to lift the man’s face up cupped in both his broad hands, the handset pressed against his sweat-dampened cheek under one palm.

“What was that? Is that your name? Are you still on that?”

“My name is Abiral, sir.”

“Oh... I like Fuckstick better. Nice try. Now that we’re talking, you’re going to tell me how and why you knew that we were in that jeep.”

“Intuition, sir!”

Pagan laughs, dropping Abiral’s face abruptly and pulling away in long strides to walk a small circle.

“Intuition? You just _knew_ the fucking King would be riding by one sunny Saturday afternoon headed somewhere for a lovely spot of lunch? You sorry fucking fool, you’re rubbish at lying. Try again.”

He rewards him with another shock, and when it’s not enough for him to hear him cry out the first time it’s quickly followed up in short succession with another, longer shock. Vanya has seated herself in Paul’s chair, and he hears her teeter restlessly, keyed into his every ministration.

_“Oh Kyra_... We thought it looked strange that an armored car would head to Utkarsh...”

Pagan stops in his tracks, grits his teeth. His fingers twitch. _No. Wrong._

_“Oh,_ Fuckstick, we were nowhere near Utkarsh. You bombed us on the road closer to fucking _Rajgad_ than Utkarsh...” he says, a grin twisting over his face as he turns back to the Havildar, “How is it that you knew we were headed to Uktarsh? Who gave you that piece of intel?”

There’s panic in his eyes again. Good.

“We...I... Sabal...” he stammers, breaths coming in shorter and shorter strokes as he begins to tremble.

“Sabal _what_ , Abiral? No, hold that thought. Get your _fucking_ head on straight, you insolent cunt. What good are you when you’re simpering like a child?” Pagan snarls, losing his temper, and behind him he hears Vanya rise from the chair, “Calm yourself before we continue. I’ve got all fucking day.”

“Shock him again,” she whispers, barely audible, but he hears her.

And by god, she’s not wrong, it feels fucking _good_ to flip the switch and watch the rack light up, to listen to the Havildar wail in fear and beg for mercy through trembling jitters. It’s not as though he does this often. After all, it’s always been Paul’s job. Pagan’s thumb hovers over the off switch, ready to press the moment it becomes too much for his victim, but then Vanya’s hand swats out and wraps around his wrist and pulls, twisting him around and away.

Her eyes are alight with the blue-white glow of the board behind him, but he has little time to remark on her fierce gaze as she snakes her hands around the back of his head and presses herself against him, lips crashing into his. Something snaps inside him, he can’t make himself pull away as she snares him in her grasp, kissing, licking, biting hungrily. The taste of blood on her lips, the taste of metal in the air, teeth clacking together as she gets all too violent in her pursuit to devour his mouth. Her strong, lithe body slides against his, all heat and power and force, and for a moment he’s worried she might shove him backwards into the shock rack – _the fucking shock rack._

_“Jesus, Vanya!”_ Pagan snarls as he manages to find his senses, getting his hands between them and shoving her off him forcefully.

She stumbles back in a daze, mouth agape, panting raggedly, and he spits the blood from his mouth onto the floor. Turning back to the Havildar, it’s too damn late. He’s too far gone, foaming at the mouth and kept moving only by the jolts of electricity still arcing through the poor man’s nerves. The moment he fumbles up the handset and turns the contraption off, his body falls limp. Dead as a doornail.

“You fucking _idiot!”_ he growls, whipping back to her, chest heaving, “What answers will we have now, hm? You couldn’t keep your mouth off me for another twenty fucking minutes?”

Guilty. She looks horribly guilty. Vanya is deflating fast, caving in on herself.

“I just…”

“I don't know what you thought this was, or who you think you are Miss Rotenberg. But you are not your father. I can see you share his interests but I promise you I'm not looking for a replacement,” Pagan sighs, scrubbing his face with his hands, “Your father thinks I kidnapped you. And in all fairness I suppose I have, haven’t I? I've made demands for him to return.”

“And will he?” she asks meekly, sighing, “If he misses me so much, like you said. Or did you lie about that too.”

“Oh, he will,” Pagan smirks, and says no more, standing and observing her as her world falls apart around her.

All the cogs have started to churn in her mind, and all the pistons have begun to fire. He can see her mind working even as she closes off her walls, visibly regrets reaching out to him. And in some strange way, he aches for her. It’s a foreign feeling he hasn’t touched in a long time, one he hasn’t breached with anyone since, well, Ishwari. And that was well over a decade ago...

“Well, let’s take our leave of here, shall we? I’m sure you have more questions, and I’ve got more answers. And I’d very much like to get cleaned up. Our good friend Fuckstick here won’t do us any good now, you’ve made sure of that,” he sighs, giving her one final glance-over and turning on his heel for the door.

Kamran presses in, listening in as he should be – good chap – and behind him follows two of the soldiers who he must have called for clean-up duty. If they hurry they can get the Havildar outside before he loses control of his faculties and save themselves a hell of a lot of mess to clean up. Pagan lets himself out through the open door, hoping Vanya will follow.

It takes her a moment, but she does, back to her wide-eyed predatory stalking. Back to her thrilled heaving and manic jitters.

“It will take Kamran a moment to be ready for our departure. Why don’t we enjoy the view?” he asks as they step from the building the way the entered, squinting into the bright afternoon sunlight.

Vanya is close behind, wringing her hands together nervously. When he stops at the broad stairs that lead down the front lawn, aiming to have a seat and wait for his men to return for their trip together back North, she dances from foot to foot restlessly. She’s holding something in, or perhaps trying to let something out. Nevertheless, all he wants to do right this very moment is have a god damned seat after all the frantic action of today, and so he sits without another word, propping one knee up and resting his elbow on it casually. From on the ground, it’s much easier to look anywhere but at Vanya, easier to avoid that uneasy longing in his gut.

“Tell me about Lakshmana,” she says, blurting it out like she’s been holding it in like a breath.

Pagan’s stomach twists, wrung like a cloth squeezed for every drop of water. His heart begins to thunder in his chest on its own accord, just as it had this morning, and he swallows hard. The intrusiveness of it all is sickening. _This,_ he’s come to figure, must be what anxiety feels like. Being caught off-guard with his metaphorical pants down, unprepared and flayed open to his most vulnerable core.

_“Don’t,”_ is all he can get out, voice dropping hard.

If four words could ruin his day faster than the ones she’s just spoken, he can’t think of them.

“Was she sick?” Vanya presses, her voice far too gentle for the assertively obtuse question falling from her lips.

“She was shot,” he finds himself grating out through his teeth, “in the head.”

She says not a word more. Doesn’t even breathe, that he can hear. Doesn’t even shift on her feet any more. He hears her drop to sit beside him, feet scraping in the dirt, and suddenly she’s right next to him. Close enough to see, to feel the heat of her body, but not to touch. Centimeters away from each other. He should feel repulsed by her presence, as blatantly intrusive as she’s being, but something about her body beside his eases the uneasy fluttering in his throat. Perhaps this is how she’d felt when he’d come to sit beside her up there in the air, when he’d rubbed her back until she could breathe again.

“Pagan I’m sorry, I...”

“It’s alright. How would you have known if you didn’t ask? I’d rather you ask me than anyone else,” he says, ducking his head and staring hard at his scuffed shoes.

“I won’t ask any more, but all the same, if you want to tell me anything else I’d be willing to listen,” she offers, turning her hand on her knee palm-up.

An offering. He doesn’t take it, merely glances to see her fingers trembling. He can’t bring himself to touch her. He takes a steadying breath, preparing to pick the scab off the wound. Each time he does it hurts a little less, but nevertheless it deepens the scar.

“Ajay’s mother Ishwari was sent to my palace to spy on me by the leader of the very same terrorist group that attacked us today. We fell in love, and into our lives came Lakshmana. An unexpected blessing, the light of my life. Her husband found out about our affair and murdered our daughter before her second birthday,” Pagan says, acutely aware of just how short this story has become the more he’s had to tell it to the select few who have heard it.

“How did you two move past that?” Vanya asks, and he can’t help but laugh, the sharp noise of it echoing across the lawn.

“The two of us didn’t move in any direction besides _apart_ , Vanya. Ishwari killed Mohan in self-defense and fled Kyrat with baby Ajay on her hip. The next time I saw the love of my life was in the hands of her son, ashes in a silver fucking urn,” he spits, the words still tasting sour on his teeth.

All this time and it still aches just as terribly as it did a year ago, the day he’d gotten a follow-up on her dossier with her obituary stapled to the front. The day he’d shouted until he’d gone hoarse, and then shouted some more because it just wouldn’t stop spouting forth from his chest between sobs and laughter and whatever incoherent nonsense he could manage to spit out. She’d promised to come back to him, but not like that. Not in a fucking urn being smuggled over the border like contraband.

Vanya mutters his name softly, tries to reach out to him and close the small gap between them, but he finds himself slapping her hand away harshly. She recoils, gasping, and he stumbles to his feet with a grimace.

“Pagan I’m sorry,” she stammers, holding up her hands.

He can’t blame her, really, for he’s the one who’s chosen to go and vomit out the bitter reality all over their otherwise lovely day. He pinches his nose, breathing hard through it, and tries to draw himself down from this awful, angry high. With his eyes closed he can listen to the birds chattering in the trees and the rustle of the breeze through the valley. He can hone in the world around him outside of this narrowed-down circle he’s focused so tightly in on.

When Pagan opens his eyes again, Vanya has risen to her feet, and Kamran and the others have come out around the other side of the compound, mercifully rid of the body. He bites his tongue until the men have moved past them, giving them a firm nod as they salute. As he makes to follow off behind them to the chopper, Vanya utters his name, stopping him in his tracks. And _fuck him_ , he stops, swallowing hard.

It’s difficult to turn back to look at her, caught somewhere between loathing the sight of her and adoring every curl and curve and freckle of her. This new Vanya-shaped wedge working its way into his heart is a frightening thing, and looking at it now sitting beside the deep, dark pit of an old, blackened Ishwari-shaped flame is jarring. Uncomfortable. Something he just can’t face right here, right now.

“Can I hug you?” she asks, “No funny business this time.”

_Yes, please, for fuck’s sake I need this. Crave this. Need you._

_“No_. We can’t do this, you and I. Let me mourn,” he says, surprising himself for how austere his voice comes out.

All at once he watches Vanya’s walls come up. She bristles with shock for only but an instant, and in the next she’s shuttered herself up into an impenetrable thing, straightening into a rigid, cold pillar.

“Thank you,” she says curtly, and that’s that.

They’re off on their way to the helicopter just down the hill, his heart twisting tight, aching knots in his chest. He feels sick, feels dizzy, feels _pain_. His head will need tending to the moment he gets back to the palace, but then so now will his heart. Perhaps some whiskey and a long, long bender will do the trick. Either way, the sooner she’s gone from his life now, the better.

She’s served her purpose, and the moment Paul’s here, their time will be at an end.

_It’s better this way._


	8. Degringolade

For three weeks she’s been crammed in this stifling palace once again. One taste of freedom, and one breathtaking foray into something beyond her wildest dreams, and suddenly she’s cooped back up into the gilded cage again.

Vanya never should have lashed out. It wasn’t the kiss that did it, no. She’d felt the way his body responded to that, the way he’d melted into her like wax to a candle. No, she’d gotten too overzealous and asked too many questions. She’d poked the bear and gotten bit, and this was her just reward.

Things have been twice as terrible now, though, for she knows _exactly_ what she’s missing out on. She knows why she’s here, and what Pagan has to hide. Ajay has had the palace staff hide sharp objects from her as though she’s a savage, as though she’s shown any indication she’s dangerous.

A _precaution_ , they’d said when Pagan dropped her off, packed his bags, and turned right back around to leave again.

A _precaution_ , Ajay still says when she questions him, especially when she begs for any access to information. A computer, tablet, _something with a search engine_ for fuck’s sake. There’s so much she wants to learn, so many things about herself she wants to explore. And none of them she’s been able to touch without any kind of research tools available to her. And that’s probably precisely how Pagan wants it, keeping her tightly under his thumb while he steers clear of her.

-

Ajay invites her to lunch early on this particular Friday afternoon. Usually he’s out running errands or helping villagers in the North this time of day. When Vanya pads into the lavish dining room on the ground floor of the palace, he’s already seated at the head of the table where Pagan normally sits. He’s got his feet up on the table, casual as can be, and it’s obvious he’s enjoying having the palace to himself. Despite the strain of everything, he’s made a good effort to take care of her. And knowing what she knows now, though she can’t bring herself to breach the subject with him after the blow-up with Pagan, she understands his angle quite a bit better. He’s trying his best to hold things together. Poor thing.

“Hey,” Ajay says, sliding his feet from the table and sitting up when he catches sight of her, “food’s on.”

Meals have been quite a bit more meager in the King’s absence, though she can’t complain one bit. Crab Rangoon got tiring after the first week here. Cold crab Rangoon at that, often leftovers served after Pagan had enjoyed his own meals and the staff had allowed her to come down and pick at the leftovers. The food today is hot, much less extravagant, and, she comes to notice rather quickly, _American._

“My god are those hot dogs?” Vanya asks, eyes wide as she nearly throws herself in a seat, “Fucking beans? What the hell? How did you smuggle these things over the border?”

“I know a guy in Patna,” Ajay winks, “I missed food from home, and nobody else here would touch this shit. Figured you’d enjoy a taste of home.”

“Would I ever, holy _shit,_ ” she grins as she helps herself to a hearty plate of comfort food, trying not to think about how out of place it all looks and smells among all the décor.

They eat in silence for no longer than a heartbeat before Ajay clears his throat through a bite of food and swallows before speaking. He looks concerned about something, and she can’t help but dread whatever must be about to come out of his mouth.

“So, Paul is back in Kyrat. As of this morning,” he says, “And they’re planning a huge fete down at his compound to welcome him back. I was invited.”

_Oh, not bad news at all, all things considered._

But there’s something more. He looks to be swallowing back something just on the tip of his tongue, like the words taste bad in his mouth. Ajay chokes back a mouthful of cola and tries again, looking her over with a sterner look in his eye.

“Yesterday, I missed dinner because I had to go down there and talk with Pagan. He’s been working with his men there and at Varshakot to get everything ready for Paul’s return, I guess. And... There’s no easy way to put this, Vanya,” he sighs, hard, and runs a hand through his fluff of ebony hair, “With Paul back here, we have no use for you anymore. You’ll be on the first flight out of Patna Saturday morning and back to St. Paul by Monday.”

The words come out of Ajay’s mouth in such a rush that they take a moment to catch up to her, but by the time they’ve looped around her mind once, things have started to sink to the pit of her stomach like a heavy load of bricks. The words sit like ice in her gut, searing at her from the inside and causing her to tense up. The way Ajay says _we_ , like all along he’s been playing this game too... never really her ally, never really having her interests in mind at all...

“But that’s tomorrow,” Vanya finds herself saying, bristling through the heavy walls she’s slamming up again.

“I know. We’re going to have the staff pack your stuff for you so you won’t have to worry about it. I’m not going to Paul’s party tonight, I figured I’d throw us our own little farewell party here,” Ajay offers up a smile, trying to appease her, but she’s too far gone.

She stumbles up and out of her chair, sending the wooden thing clattering backward to the floor, and her feet carry her up and out of the dining room like a shot.

All her life it’s been shove before push, pull before lead. Take, never ask. Tell, never offer. Pushing thirty as she is, and it’s pitiful that she’s still letting them walk all over her. She should have seen this coming, should have known the moment Pagan told her everything. That she’d been manipulated from the start, that everything had been a load of shit meant only to get her over here however he could. And now that Paul is comfortably settled back into his cushy little manor, she’s useless. To anyone here, and anyone at home.

Out there pressed up against the wreckage of the jeep, rifle in her hands and adrenaline surging her system, she’d felt _useful_. She’d fucking _done_ something with herself, and done it well enough for her first try. The proof had been right there, in the blood in the dirt and the bullets in that man’s chest. In the strange pride she’d seen in the King’s eyes before he hid it away and tried to pass it off as amusement.

She’d seen her shot at something else, looking at her father’s handiwork and taking an interest in it. Even now, thinking on the tools she’d seen lining the walls and imagining what must have been locked away in those trunks, she knows it’s something she can learn. It’s something she _wants_ to learn. This new, strange interest. And if Pagan has any say, she never will. But what choice does she have in the matter? She can’t simply run into the woods and never look back, shit doesn’t _work like that_ in the real world.

Vanya finds herself stumbling down the second-floor hallways, fumbling past door after door blindly on no real trajectory for anything in particular. She supposes she just needs to _move_ , to get away from whatever demons are chasing her down. At least until she can think clearly, sort this mess out, come up with a battle plan.

She’s never been further than the last few set of doors in the East Wing. The staff has warned her time and again not to wander too far down here, but Ajay always seems to venture off down this hallway. Pagan’s suite must be near here. The further she presses into unfamiliar territory, the hazier she becomes until suddenly she’s hit straight in the gut with a familiar scent.

_Fresh-cut jasmine. Vetiver. Vanilla. Cinnamon._

Notes she can pick out from her memory like a strange perfume. The smell of Pagan’s coat, of his hair, of _him_. She’s standing before a nondescript door locked with an alphanumeric keypad, blinking red in the dim light of the hallway. And all she can see in front of her is _him_ , looking so agonized. Torn between longing and hatred, so much like herself. Wanting to reach for her and run from her. To kiss her and to slap her.

It’s somewhat of a strange sensation to see him so clearly in front of her. She knows she must be hallucinating, and perhaps it’s the lack of sleep that’s done it. But the ache is real all the same, raking at her nerves like hot coals. This may be the last she sees of him, if in fact her fate is to sit stuffed up in this god damned palace for the rest of the day to await her departure tomorrow while Pagan gorges on food and wine in the South all evening. And while she’d love to say goodbye, she’s... not ready.

Vanya can’t meet the eyes of this foggy vision, can’t even bring herself to look at him any longer. She squeezes her eyes shut, tries to force out the overwhelming surge of _need_ in her chest, but she’s left pounding desperately against all the walls she’s thrown up. Left a fucking mess caving in on herself, just trying to sort out all these new and fascinating pieces of herself that this man has just waltzed in and lovingly shattered open.

Everything is roaring, her mind won’t _shut the fuck up_ , and Pagan still lingers there, in her mind and in her nose as she presses her face desperately to the cool door of his suite, choking out a sob, and then...

Like the switch of Paul’s shock-rack, she ignites. She aligns. She collides and unifies. Vanya becomes whole. She _understands_.

_She’ll do..._

-

By the time she's gotten the compound, _De Pleur's_ little welcome party is already well under-way. As Vanya strides up the long sweeping lawn of her father's compound, she acknowledges that it’s easy to tell he's home. There's a distinct Paul-ness in the air, in the choice of music bubbling out from within the grand estate. In the way the landscaping has been touched up a certain way, and in the neatly parked jeep _right_ by the front door. Paul's way of doing things. It's so strange to see such familiar hallmarks of someone who should by any right be 7,000 miles away, living a normal life with his wife and child. Well, _other child_.

And it's such as Vanya swallows back her bitterness and stands before what may be her darkest hour that she reminds herself where she's from and how far she's come. She's always been the _other daughter_. Marina’s one and only, light of that woman's life 'til the very end, but never Paul's. Such a pity that Ashley will have to learn about her older sister in this way, if she even does at all.

She sucks in a steadying breath, trying to relax in the warm afternoon sun. She has all the time she needs. Can afford to stand and stare for a moment if she wants, make a mental painting to take with her down the road for when all is said and done. Her eyes trace the architecture of Paul's home, his _new_ home, for she's sure he won’t come back to Minnesota again this time unless it's in a body bag or perhaps cut into pieces by this Sabal she's barely learned about. Her father's laughter cuts a joyous peal across the air, ringing loud and clear over the conversations being held somewhere up there in that open-air dining room. She winces, wants to run from that laughter for the pain it brings her. And then her gaze catches on a glint of glittering silver in among the rich crimson of the dining room balcony.

_Pagan._

The King leans casually against the bannister, wine glass in hand. Cloaked in a jacket of fine gray and silver brocade that catches the light in shimmering facets. Ever the center of attention, even at someone else's party.

Her chest heaves. Her stomach roils. Her heart flutters, reaching out through her desperately for him. And then like a trap she's shuttered up again, cold as ice beneath her skin but achingly hot in the deepest pit of her stomach and sinking down between her legs.

Pagan’s eyes widen in surprise as he notices her stepping up the walk. She sees the shock on his face, plain as day, and the agony that follows. Then he, too, shutters it off with something much more cruel and detached than she's put on. He sweeps away from the balcony and disappears into the dining room, and she's left alone again on her ascent up the final few sweeping stairs to the front entrance. The moment she's inside, the place already _smells_ like home. Whether it truly does or not, she can close her eyes and picture Paul's suburban Minnesota two-story all the same.

She finds herself doing this every so often, up the winding staircases until she's nearly stumbling onto the third floor, into a crowd of people who separate at the sight of her. Parting like the red sea, like she’s plagued, or _dangerous_ , or _horrifying_ , but none of them look scared. In fact they’re all looking away from her, mostly, and she tries to follow where the small crowd of strangers is staring, and _there he is_. Khaki pants and a nice button-up, stubble shaved cleaner than she’s seen in a long time. Looking worse for wear with awful bags under his eyes, and a little underweight from the last time she's seen him, but…

_“Paul…”_

“Hey Van,” he says, sinking visibly with relief, and all awkward reunions be damned he hauls her into a bear-tight hug.

Much as she wants to push away from him, to rebuke him for all he's done, she finds herself pressing her face into his shoulder and squeezing her eyes shut as he utters broken apologies into her hair. His arms are trembling as he crushes her into his chest. His voice breaks as he tries to speak.

“Hey. I'm happy to be here,” Vanya murmurs into his shirt, letting her guard down for the strange new comfort of her father’s embrace, “I'm glad you're doing alright.”

“We have so much to catch up on,” Paul says as he pulls away to look at her, the admiration in his eyes almost startling to her.

He’s never looked at her this way before. Does he know that she knows? What has Pagan told him of her? Is he… _proud_ of something he sees in her? Over her father's shoulder she catches a cold brown gaze, honing in on her knowingly. Pagan narrows his eyes, lingering at the edge of the crowd. _Calculates._

“We won't get to. I'm… leaving tomorrow,” Vanya says, holding the King's gaze only long enough to finish her sentence.

Only so he knows that _she_ knows. And the King's face eases, softens just a little then. He understands. She swallows back the bitter bile of resentment on her tongue and shifts her attention back to Paul.

“Vanya I'm so sorry… I took so long to get back here. I hope he didn't hurt you,” Paul’s face scrunches up with worry, his voice warbles.

The flood of sincere emotion from him is disillusioning at best, but all the same it's nice to have even a long afternoon to build a brief relationship with her father. What comes tonight will forge her future down one of two paths, and she can’t get hung up on one avenue or the other just yet. There’s still so much to do.

“I'm fine, really. I'll be fine,” she promises.

Assuring herself just as much as him.

Paul smiles awkwardly at her then, letting her have some space between them, and he scrubs his hand through his messy hair.

“I guess you know my deep dark secrets, huh,” he clears his throat, “Pagan told me you got a briefing on my uh… station here.”

“Paul… _dad_ ,” Vanya says, trying this word on for size.

It doesn’t quite fit comfortably, never has in her head in hypothetical conversations just like this. This isn’t how she had ever expected to have ‘the talk’ with her father.

His jaw drops, he clears his throat. Humility overcomes him, and he caves in shame of the understanding of what he’s done for so long. How can he deny it now, staring his traits in the face?

“…how long have you known?” he whispers, sorrow in his eyes.

_“Supper's on, lads!”_ Pagan's cheery voice booms over the room, effectively shattering the wistful little box around her and her father.

Vanya steps away from Paul, makes to take her leave.

_Tasks to do, places to go. Things left unfinished._

“Van, honey.”

She halts, holds her breath. Paul tries so hard to sound endearing above his evident discomfort.

“Will you stay? Have dinner with us before you go? There’s so much food. You can… you can meet my friends. Surprise, I know. I have quite a few here. Satish, Noore, I guess you met Kamran… please stay. _Please.”_

_Oh,_ but she has to go. Has _so much_ to fucking do. He doesn't know she'll be just downstairs, working on something. Out of sight, out of mind. But the way Paul's voice breaks, the way he truly, _sincerely_ sounds like for once in his life he maybe regrets what he's done to her for twenty-six long years…

It's enough to turn her around and march her silently to the dinner table, now seated under the hawk-like gaze of King Min much the same as she had been in Paul's _other home._ A pretty thing to be examined, stared at, picked apart by his eyes and dissected in his mind as she eats in uncomfortable silence. For as delighted as Paul seems to be by her presence, he makes little effort to follow through with introducing her to his friends. No matter, it's a work in progress. She eats with consternation written all over her face, determined to make it through her meal as quickly as possible.

Like a child, if she's seen with an empty plate, perhaps she’ll be dismissed. But it seems the way that the social gatherings work here in Kyrat flow much differently than in America. And of course, why wouldn't they? This may be Paul's house, but these are Pagan's associates, all of them. From wherever in the world they've been plucked up, they've all come to settle under the hovering hand of King Min and his strange ways. Once plates have been finished and cups have run dry, it's insisted upon her by her father that she stay and chat.

_Have a drink. Meet my friends. Forget about whatever you're scheming…_

Paul’s seen it in her eyes. He'd caught her fidgeting at dinner, restlessly glancing between Pagan and that inviting staircase, her only escape _down and out_ of this awfully stuffy meal. Of course he understands, blood of her blood. This is something she'll have to get used to. Of course he'll try to stop her if he knows what she wants. So she stays. Just long enough to bide her time.

Just long enough to steal a few more lingering glances at the tall, broad frame of Pagan's shoulders as he's turned away, animatedly in conversation with a small Chinese woman.

Just long enough to hang onto that twisting, needling hurt in her chest encapsulating that tiny molten sun burning there so brightly.

Just long enough to watch as Pagan turns, feeling her eyes on his back, and _stares_. Like there's no-one else in the room just now. Just the two of them, and for a moment there's a glimmer of recognition. What's that phrase she's heard in passing?

_Namaste._ My soul greets yours.

It’s tangible, that arcing shock of pain and longing that ropes between the two of them, and she wants to grasp at it. Pull it, tear it away. Whether to be rid of it for good or to replace it with something _more_ , she doesn't know.

“Miss Rotenberg,” King Min says, drawing up into a cold poise.

Eyes are on them, must see them gawking, stalking, _hurting._ He’s already shut off. Reclusive in himself. The picture of a stoic King detached from the world.

“Your Highness…” she says flatly.

“How kind of you to crash our lovely fete this evening,” he sneers, eyes crinkling.

“Except that I don’t see Ajay here. Do you? He found it a little rude that you'd invite him but not Paul's daughter. Trying to separate us like that? _Rude,”_ Vanya grins, challenging him.

Nobody else tells the King no. No-one she's seen in his presence save for Ajay dares to open their mouths like she does. It feels good. It _shocks him_. She sees the tiny flicker of it on his face. Every time.

Except this time.

This time, Pagan is ready for her. Prepared for her spitfire, ready and armored for this battle with an audience. He stands haughtily among his governors and inner circle, ready for anything. Daring her to try.

“I didn’t think it appropriate given the circumstance. You were and are a risk to safety, and a danger to my assets. If you'd have controlled your temper better I'd have gladly brought you here myself,” he says firmly.

“And yet, here I am.”

_“Yes_ , and yet here you are… I suppose I can give these to you myself then,” he rolls his eyes blatantly and fishes in the inner pocket of his jacket, _“here.”_

In his outstretched hand is her passport, inexplicably procured. Last she'd seen it was locked up tight in her home in _America._ And somehow he's managed to get his claws on it. Managed to weasel into her home one way or another. The thought of it makes her skin crawl, invading her privacy in such a way just to serve a means to an end. Tucked in between the pages is a boarding pass. A one-way flight out of Patna.

This can't go on. Not here. Not with so many people watching. _Not like this._

She won't give him the pleasure of breaking her down piece by piece in front of everyone. In front of Paul.

“Let's discuss this elsewhere,” Vanya says curtly, lowering her voice.

It’s not a suggestion.

“You think I'm following you?” He tries to make a joke of it, get a laugh out of anyone listening.

“Pagan, _please.”_

Min hesitates. She can see the momentum slowing, faltering. Halting in his eyes. He sucks in a breath.

“Downstairs. _Now,”_ he sighs, leering, and brushes past her roughly.

_Good._

-

The parlor above Paul's little torture room is a stark contrast to the main event itself. In there, where she'd been – where they'd last been together three weeks ago - it's cold and foreboding. Up here, up half a level looking down on the place, it's cushy. He must have guests come by for interrogation hour. But nobody's down there on the shock rack. And nobody else is in the parlor. Only she and the King. Standing yards away from each other. Furious, forlorn, waylaid.

_“Speak_ , girl,” Pagan spits when she hasn't said anything.

His foot is tapping rapidly on the floor. The hard sole raps a sharp rhythm through the empty room. His arms are crossed impatiently in front of his chest. Like armor. Defending himself from her.

“Where did you get my passport? _How_ did you get my passport?” she stabs a finger in the air at him.

It’s not what she’s meant to ask. None of this is what she's meant to do tonight, but here she is.

“I sent someone to collect it when I made arrangements last week,” Pagan says as though it’s truly that simple.

“To my house? In St. Paul?”

“You never even locked your front door, Vanya. You left your cell phone on the kitchen counter. Long dead by the time she found it there, she didn’t bother bringing it.”

“How the fuck do you _know that?!_ Do you spread your tendrils into everything?” she snarls, taking a step toward him.

He doesn’t budge. Doesn’t flinch. This isn't a game for him any more.

“I know _everything,_ dear. Anything I could want to learn, someone will find out for me. _I'm the fucking King,”_ Pagan's voice drops, his eyes darken.

A grin tugs at his lips, and she wants to bite them. Kiss them. _Slap them away._

“Like how you sat crying at the door to my apartments in the palace this morning…”

Vanya stills. Holds her breath.

“But you weren't…”

“-there? You think I don't keep watch on things when I'm gone? I paid for the good security systems for a reason,” he chuckles, but it’s not a sound of amusement, “Why did you do that?”

Pagan's eyes shift away from her. Flutter down, a demure dip of his long lashes. A breach of his confident exterior. He softens, crumbles, seems to think on things for a long moment while she shakes on her feet.

She can’t tell him that she saw him there in her haze, aching for her. That she ached for him too – _aches_ for him even now, even as she so terribly wants to wrap her hands around the hollow of his throat and squeeze until he understands the pain in her.

It's this thought that draws her to him, has her hands suddenly sliding up and around his neck. But she doesn’t squeeze, doesn't grip. She cups, feels, slides her thumbs across the line of his strong jaw. Pagan stiffens, grits his teeth, and she can feel the muscles working under his flesh. His eyes are hot, angry.

“Don't you fucking touch me,” he snarls, but he makes no move to stop her.

“Pagan…” Vanya murmurs, scaring herself for how strangled his name comes out.

_No, no, not part of this plan. Stop._

But she can't. Not as his arms unfold and fall to his sides, letting her closer to him. Not as she finds herself pressing her forehead into the vetiver warmth of the hollow of his throat, breathing deeply in his scent. Not as his hands settle heavy on her hips, feeling so strange and yet _so familiar_ there. He pulls her to him, holding firm, and he's _so clear_ in his surrender that it should be a breath of relief.

_“Dusha,”_ Pagan huffs into her hair, and she hears it this time, what he’s meant to call her.

He manages to nose himself in enough between them to steal a searing kiss from her, and she's lost to him. Crying out softly, _hating herself_ for how easily she breaks apart in his arms.

_No, no, no. NO._

This isn't true. He doesn't want this from her. Not even as he clutches her closer, slides his tongue along hers, no. He can’t. _They can't._ But she can’t help herself. She needs this. Needs him, terribly. Has for a long time, likely since the moment she felt his hand settle on her back, felt him draw her into a hug to ease away her panic up there in the air.

Her hands are at his cheeks again, pulling him into their starving kiss. He grunts his approval, nips at her lips.

_Stop. Scared. Wrong. Not the plan, no._

They’re both angry even as they meld, even as his palms trace divots up her back and press new memories into her goosebumped skin. His eyes are full of resentment and fury, burning incandescent around that little flicker of _something else._ She doesn’t want a hate fuck. That's not what this is. Who he is. To her. Her hands are on his chest, pulling at fastenings of his suit. She doesn’t want to take it off.

_“Damnit,_ Pagan!” Vanya yelps, trying to push him away as she finds the strength.

Resiliently he holds her to him. Determined.

_You have to fucking stop this. Can’t do this._

…

_We can’t do this, you and I._

She can hear his voice clear as day, that moment he shuttered up and broke off whatever it had been, if anything at all.

Her hands are at his throat again.

Squeezing. Only a little. Just angry, just proving that she can. To him. And herself, as she indulges in that rage again. That new familiar part of her. Her favorite part of her. Her fingers rest just above the high collar of his shirt, and she presses. In and up. His hands leave her body, she feels the cool absence of his heat against her flesh.

Pagan’s stare bores into hers, hot and angry one minute as he moves to pull her hands away from him, and in the next moment his face sags. Confusion blurs his features, twists his face up as he tries to discern something. Her heart thunders in her chest as she feels his body waver, but she can’t bring herself to let go. His hands never make it to her wrists. His brown eyes lull back, flutter shut, and still she grips, hands shaking with fear. With _power_. She can't control the animalistic energy surging through her.

His pulse thickens beneath her fingertips, heartbeat slamming through him in protest of this sudden pressure. His body is fighting her even as he surrenders.

The King crumbles. Knees buckled, body limp, he drops. She fumbles awkwardly, trying to catch him to ease the fall, but she only manages to lay him out in an awkward splay on the floorboards. Vanya has done this. All on her own, not even fucking meaning to, she’s just laid him out in half a minute with the wrong pressure in the wrong place. A stroke of dumb luck.

“Fuck. Fuck, fuckfuck,” she wheezes, fighting to catch her breath as adrenaline surges through her.

It feels _good._

Pagan looks so peaceful now, the rage washed away from his face and drawn out of him like the tide. He looks much younger, so much less stressed.

_Something like he'd look on the pillow next to hers in the morning, still peacefully asleep._

The thought flutters in her chest like a caged bird, tickling at her gently until it settles on a roost and preens its feathers. Something like she imagines love to feel. But this can't be love, not when he's unconscious and she’s just laid him out here carelessly, thrilling in it all the while.

_Can it?_

“Vanya, _what the fuck?”_ Paul bellows, startling her nearly to tears in the silent room.

“It's not what it looks like!” Vanya cries out breathlessly, still heaving from her nerves.

“Is he dead? Holy shit. I'm fired. I'm fired and you're dead. We're both dead. Did he come at you? Was he armed? Oh my god holy shit.”

“…I choked him. Cut off circulation I think I don't know… lucky shot I guess,” she scrambles to explain over him, raising her voice to interject.

Paul’s eyes widen. His lips part as if to speak, and he lifts a finger pointedly before deciding against whatever is on the tip of his tongue. He looks back to Pagan.

“What were you trying to do if that was your lucky shot?”

_“Not that._ None of this. I had other plans entirely, none of which had _anything_ to do with…” Vanya gestures mutely at the King, still standing over him, and something settles over her.

“Other plans?” her father presses, but she's beyond hearing him.

“Help me get him downstairs.”

_“What._ No.” Paul blanches, but he isn’t entirely convincing.

“Help. Me get. Your boss. Downstairs. Onto a table. You have a table, don't you?” she demands, hearing the words slip from her lips before she can fully process what she’s urging her father to do.

“Oh my god Vanya…”

_“Don't you dad?”_

Her father stands stock-still, taking in the tableau before him. His daughter wavering and heaving with some ungodly species of manic _lust_ , wild curls mussed up from Pagan’s wandering, grasping fingers. The King of Kyrat buckled in an unnatural fashion at her feet, kiss-bitten lips plumped and cheeks flushed, shock of blond hair a mess from her own exploration. He sets his hands on his hips, his face a hardline of consternation.

_“Well,_ we have about three minutes ‘til he wakes up,” Paul says after some consideration, nodding firmly.

-

With Pagan resting on the cold metal table underneath a bright spotlight, Vanya can almost convince herself he’s simply sleeping. He likely won’t be out for too much longer, and she doesn’t want to be here when he wakes up. She can hear Paul bustling about the room somewhere behind her, dismantling something like she’s asked him to do. It was surprising how quickly she’d gotten him to cave with just a little pressing. Perhaps he feels too guilty about the whole pretend-he's-not-her-father thing. Or perhaps he’s champing at the bit to get a touch of revenge on the King for pulling this wild stunt.

None of it really matters, she figures. She’s made such a mess of things that she won’t be around to see things through any more. No, her plans have gone to shit and she’ll just have to catch that plane home after all. The moment Pagan’s eyes are open, surely both their lives will be over. Best that she’s as far as she can be from him when that time comes.

“Look what I found,” Paul says behind her, and before she can even turn to see he’s already coming to her side, “Old faithfuls, these things. Think they’ll work?”

In his chiseled, calloused hands are two pairs of manacles. Well-worn and heavy duty. Clearly a favorite of his, whether an old trick or a frequently used one. Her eyes widen as she looks between the cold, tarnished metal and Pagan’s wrists, his socked ankles.

“Paul...”

“Too much? I don’t know what we’re doing, Van. You tell me.”

He’s far too happy for this. Or at least, she thinks he is. Then again, Vanya has never seen her father at work. For all she knows, this may be his norm. From the grizzled reaction of the Havildar and Pagan’s foreboding story, her father had been made out to be a stoic and focused worker. She imagines him to work in frightening silence, not chattering on as he is now. He’s _giddy,_ almost. Truly, he must be eager to shove a middle finger – literally or metaphorically – right in the King’s face.

Vanya doesn’t _tell,_ however, as Paul’s requested. She doesn’t say a word. She pushes her father away, urges him to leave her be for a moment. Implores him to give her space to breathe. Mercifully, Paul takes the hint and steps out of the room with a quiet _‘be right back then’._

Pagan huffs quietly, breathing slowly and calmly in a deep, unconscious sleep. His eyelids flutter like perhaps he’s dreaming. His lips are parted, bruised and flushed from their frantic encounter of gnashing teeth and sliding tongues. She reaches out hesitantly, fingertips dancing over the long scar arcing up his forehead just beneath his hairline. The only remnant left of their near-death encounter on the road. The only real physical reminder she has of something she considers a _birthday_ of sorts. He doesn’t flinch as she touches the healing wound, and so he must be in a deeper sleep than she’s imagined.

Her hand smooths over his hair, gently easing the wayward tendrils that have fallen out of place back into their proper coif.

_He really is just sleeping..._

As she works at the buttons of his dress shirt with shaky hands, she feels her anger rising up again. She remembers how not much more than a month ago she’d been balling her fists in his linen shirt, pulling him close and pouring her heart into the spark between their lips. Straddling his lap, _palming his cock,_ no, letting him fuck her tight fist. Like he wanted it, wanted her. Curling his fingers into _her_ , stroking them deep and _hard_ , just right. Knowing just what she wanted, _needed_ from him even after he’d came all over her hand, her shirt...

His shirt is open, off his chest. Vanya’s face is pressed tenderly to his throat, her nose settled in the hollow of his collarbones. Breathing in the smell of him, seething with such _fury_ as she realizes where she is. And not just where in the world, but where she’s impulsively found herself, practically cradled up to him. Yearning for him. Everything makes perfect sense as she listens to the steady thrumming of his heartbeat, her own pulse threatening to tear her apart from the sternum outward.

She loves him. In some strange, fucked up, _new_ way she can’t understand. Doesn’t want to understand.

She loves him in a way that fills her with _anger_ , and above all else this scares her the most. Love shouldn’t be this way. Shouldn’t shred her to bits and chew her up, spit her out. Shouldn’t have her yearning for him even now, when things are already over and they’ve no chance for anything together...

Pagan’s skin is fire beneath her touch, lighting up her cheeks and her nose and suffocating her suddenly. With a ragged gasp Vanya draws away, leaving her resolve behind her on that cold metal table with that infernal, beautiful man. She gets one last pining look at him before she has to turn away, her body arcing with frenetic, trembling mania. Paul meets her at the door, sees Pagan half-undressed and still unconscious on the table.

“Naked. Cuffed. Ankles and wrists,” She says, teeth chattering, almost, _almost_ unable to contain whatever is bubbling up inside her.

“Vanya, I don’t think that’s--”

_“Now.”_

Her father gawks, absolutely incredulous at the scene before him. He stares her straight in the eye, _pleading_ with her not to do this. Saying more with his gaze than he could with his words. And she stares right back, fearless and unchanged. Presses him, pierces him with a thousand-yard stare.

Paul’s gaze drops, seeing something in her perhaps that he recognizes. He focuses hard on the ground as he pushes past her roughly into the room, allowing her to exit, and he shuts the door between them abruptly. Given the space she needs to breathe now, she ambles down the hallway and out to the back courtyard into the evening. Pagan will be awake soon, and she’ll need to be ready.


	9. Hamrer Hippyer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hamrer Hippyer is a song by Heilung. Worth a listen, especially while reading this chapter, while they've got it on.

_“…we're not gonna be able to do this for long.”_

_“Just hook it up. Can you? Under the shoulders?”_

_“Jesus, yeah. I'm working on it.”_

_Tainu nit da roona pai jau ga_

Cold, calloused hands, grasping at his shoulders. Lifting him only just slightly. Sliding something under him, he can hear it beneath him scraping along the _metal surface_. Faint music humming over surround-sound, a song he's heard before, somewhere, with someone else around. He's gently lowered back down on the new, coiled ridge underneath his shoulders and –

_You're awake you’re alive open your eyes your blood flow is back get up sit up something’s wrong you're awake you're alive open your-_

Pagan draws a ragged gasp, blinking blearily into the blinding overhead lights, and braces his elbows to push himself up. His hands don’t budge, his feet don't kick. He merely succeeds in hauling his head up and bashing it back down against the metal table beneath him when he can’t get the leverage to sit himself upright.

_No, oh fuck no._

_Bad. Very bad._

He’s shackled up. Naked as the day he was born. Wrists and ankles, like a madman. Like an experiment. Like a-

Paul De Pleur steps into the cold halo of light around him, looking far grimmer than he should given the circumstance.

_Prisoner._

“You gutted, limp, _yak fucking-"_

Paul presses a finger to his lips in a heroic effort to silence him, _moronic bastard_ , and Pagan outright bites the digit that has intruded his personal space.

 _“Ouch,_ fuck!” Paul howls, withdrawing his hand like a wounded animal, shaking it out.

There's no blood, he's not injured. Paul is weak. Weaker than him. Weaker than most, even when he's most in control. Point and case.

“You let me off this table right now, De Pleur, and we'll have no quarrels,” Pagan says steadily, narrowing his eyes and craning his neck to keep his gaze on the man as he takes a few steps back.

“No can-do boss! I am so sorry about all this,” he says, shrugging his shoulders, nursing his perfectly healthy finger like a child.

“Paul, this isn't funny. I don't know how you talked your daughter into helping you with this but you are terribly lucky that I'm not feeling so inclined to charge you both for treason just now,” he growls, flatly, “let me go. _Now, Paul.”_

He can't have been fully unconscious for more than five or ten minutes, and there’s no way Paul did this all on his own. There's only one other person in their right mind who would dare to do something like this. Well, one who would cooperate with Paul rather than try to simply lock him in Durgesh and take the throne herself…

This one… this spitfire woman had broken him down and just about dismantled his resolve those five minutes ago. Got her hands around his throat, squeezed like she knew _just_ where to hold, and… now he’s here. And there's no way Paul hasn't put her up to this, hadn’t shown her just where to press on his carotids to put him down and out in a matter of seconds. A woman like that, frightening as she may be with her newfound interest in the intricacies and mannerisms of _torture_ and _questioning by force_ … a woman like that wouldn't have known how to choke him out just so. Simply illogical.

_And now she's gone, probably. Scrambled off back to the palace, and Ajay will take her to Patna in the morning… she’s gone and you did this. Another love lost to America._

“Pagan. This is fucking hilarious,” Paul chuckles, shaking his head, “Anyhow, now that you're awake I hope you don’t mind some work music. Helps keep the mind straight, you know?”

Pagan’s stomach drops. He should have expected this. Rather, he supposes he has, but he's hoped perhaps he’d be proven wrong.

“You're going to toy with me then. Take your revenge on the shit I’ve pulled with you,” he states, not needing to ask.

He's done this to himself. Truly. Poked the bear, met the teeth.

“That's my job, actually.”

_Oh._

Pagan chokes on the overwhelming amalgamation of emotions that slam through his chest at the sound of that soft alto voice. Spitfire and sticky honey and needling pent-up resentment even now after everything, and something he recognizes now from just before she'd squeezed the literal daylight out of him. Something new he can’t put a name on. Something that instills him with just as much fear as it does excitement.

“Vanya…”

“You really thought freaking me out with my own passport and a flight back home would break me,” she says, and he cranes his head in every direction to catch sight of her in his small field of view.

“Why are you helping your father like this?”

“I'm not.”

She's behind him. Up above his head. His chest is tight. He can’t see her, can’t get to her. He’s not sure if he even wants to see her...

“What reason could you possibly have to--”

 _“Shut up,”_ She purrs, dancing into view, lithe and rippling with so much _energy_.

Her eyes are intense. Alight with fire and shadowed with some held-in struggle all the same, and as she draws over him, he can’t meet her gaze. For as long as he’s been able to stare her down, rake her over with his eyes as he pleases for one reason or another, he can’t do it now. Not even as he hears the tapping of Paul’s boots over the floor as he takes his leave, hears the _click_ of the lock from the outside. Trapping them both in, unless she has a key herself. Not even as she dances her fingers delicately across his cheekbones, makes him wince in surprise, tries to turn his face to meet her eyes.

“Do your worst, but don’t make me watch,” Pagan sighs, and she pulls her hand away with a curious hum of disapproval.

To kiss him, capture him in her grasping hands and draw him close, make him crave her like oxygen... that’s enough torture. To draw this out, dangle that metaphorical carrot on a stick, find new ways to make him want her wrapped around him in every sense of the words, _that’s enough torture._

He simply cannot look her in the eye when she follows in her father’s footsteps and applies pain to flesh, draws the inevitable cries from his lips, tries to make him beg. It kills him to think as he closes his eyes and lays his head back that he’ll give her what she wants. Is he really so broken that he’ll reduce himself to simpering and hissing and pleading over the slightest little pain? If it will make her happy, bring her the satisfaction she’s apparently been seeking all her life... Or will she want him to remain quiet, stoic, unmoving in the face of whatever ministrations she chooses to dole out? She did tell him to shut up, after all...

_No, you fool, you practically soaked her panties making the Havildar wail on the shock rack._

“This music is shit,” she says, somewhere off in the corner of the room where he can’t quite see her in the shadows.

The lights overhead are too bright. They’re starting to make his head ache, as though it doesn’t already from the jarring fluctuation in blood pressure earlier.

Paul’s background music cuts off abruptly, and he doesn’t mind the silence in the room as much as he’d thought he would. He half expects her to pad back over and launch right into something unexpected and painful, even braces himself for some sort of impact. Unpredictable and wild as she is, it’s not out of the question. But then he hears the feedback on the surround-sound increase as she raises the volume and presses play on some _strange_ shit.

“So much better. I can’t work without good music,” Vanya sighs, and he can hear her footsteps padding back towards him again.

“When have you _done this before?”_ He finds himself asking, thoroughly confused by the absurdity of what’s going on.

“Heilung.”

_“What?”_

“My favorite group. So inspiring, so powerful, so... _me,_ I think? I work best at any project when I’ve got this going,” she says oh so casually, and he has to squeeze his eyes shut as her fingers trail up his bare calf in passing.

 _Jesus Christ_ she’s unhinged. She’s got a fucking soundtrack.

_Hanga dýra mingja, Hanga dýra mingja_

It’s mind-numbing at best, with a steady pulse of drum and a scratching voice grating at his nerves. Very much unlike anything he’s heard before, or would choose to listen to. In a way, very fitting that it’s apparently her _favorite music..._

Pagan is trapped here on his back, trying to even his breathing, handcuffed and manacled to a table spread-eagle like a fucking BDSM slave with nothing but a towel draped over him. _Who undressed him?_ He can’t move, can barely keep his thoughts straight over this entrancing Neolithic chanting, has _a hundred things to do_ that are far more pressing than to stay here and play torture victim for the fancies of this madwoman – crave her as he does... - and yet here he is.

Here _she_ is, now, pressing her warm palm to his chest and feeling it rising and falling with his shallow breaths. He has a faint memory of feeling her curled against him, nestled against his bare chest and breathing softly into his neck, and the mental image feels unreal. Can’t have happened. He’s barely seen the girl in person. There was the airplane, and then here in this very room, but... never undressed, never like that...

“Pagan, _look at me,_ ” Vanya says, and he shakes his head.

Grits his teeth. Won’t do it. _Can’t_. The minute he meets her eyes, sees those freckle-dappled cheeks and acknowledges that she’s still very much here in his country and fully in control of his fate here in this room, he’s finished.

_You may very well be the death of me..._

Something he’d said the day she flipped his life upside-down, or rather perhaps he’d flipped _hers_ right-side up.

An arc of pain fires through his shoulder blades like a hot knife cutting straight through his muscle. Sends him rigid, teeth clenched, spit flying as he keens, struggling against his restraints to get away from the white burning fury along his back. Just as quickly as the shock initiates it diminishes, and he falls back into the table a ragged, heaving mess. Panting raggedly, tears streaming from his eyes of their own volition. Of _fucking course_ she’s taken to shocking him right out of the starting gate.

 _“Oh_ lord be with me,” he whispers, rattled enough to be genuinely fearful of her now.

She says nothing as she hovers above him, does nothing. Doesn’t move. He can’t deduce anything from her calculating silence, thinking secret Vanya thoughts. She doesn’t even seem to take pleasure from his pain as she had with their friend _Shitstick, Fuckwad_... whoever he’d been...

His head is _pounding_. The primal, thrumming drums of the music are pounding, making it hard to think. He rather likes the way it blurs his mind.

_Hanga dýra mingja, Hanga dýra mingja_

At least he knows what’s coming now. At least he can expect the pain. Perhaps he can bring himself to watch her hands, at least, should she try to touch him again. Maybe it will help him. But then from her back pocket she withdraws a clutch of fabric. He watches her hold it out for him, observes the black fabric through the blur of tears.

“If you can’t watch, I’ll make it easier on you... It’s the least I can do,” she says, almost to sweetly for as hostile as this environment is, “For as hospitable as you’ve been up until tonight.”

He can’t even stop her, can’t turn his head in protest. The blindfold is on him in one quick slip, and he wants to weep for the soft, almost affectionate touch of her hands on his head as she gets it situated. He’s in the dark now. It’s just him alone here in the blackness, alone with whatever agony she has in store for him to pair with the ache he has in his chest, and the steady, infectious pulsing of those ancient-sounding drums.

The towel on his lap is drawn away, chilling him, and he shudders hard. He shouldn’t feel vulnerable. _She’s seen it before._ Grasped him, _pleasured him..._

“Vanya...” he whispers, not sure what he’s meant to follow up with.

He can hear her fingers whispering over fabric, and he wonders for a moment if she’s undressing for some reason. There’s no way she’d be so bold. She’s not the kind of woman. Not here, not in her father’s house, she couldn’t possibly get off on torturing him...

Pagan is swimming in the darkness, adrift on his thoughts and his fears, wondering where in the fucking room she must be and what sort of instrument she’ll be carrying over to him.

The ghosts of her fingertips crawl up his shin and he startles, instinctively kicking away for a moment before he realizes it’s not pain she’s inflicting. She’s merely touching him, exploring him. He stills himself, breath hitching, and her hands travel upwards up his leg, smoothing over his knee. Her fingers delve past an old scar on his outer thigh, right where he knows there’s one because he’s touched it so much, can still remember the pain of being stabbed there.

Vanya whispers something softly to herself, and he finds himself imagining the shape of her lips as she speaks, tightening in his chest...

Her touch travels higher, dancing over his hips, and without warning he finds his balls cupped in her warm palm, sending a shudder through him.

“What are you doing?” He finally chokes out as he tries to keep himself in check.

The last thing they both need in an embarrassing erection in the middle of this _session_ of sorts. For all he knows, Paul is up there in the gallery watching her, making sure she’s going to do what he wants her to.

“Did you enjoy that? The way you hissed...”

_“...Vanya?”_

She’s fucking insane.

Pagan tries to tune out the infectious music hammering in his ears, pulsing with his heartbeat, tries to will himself not to get too _into_ things. Her hand is still there, stock-still, waiting for his response perhaps. He can’t answer her. Not with her down there, so intimately _grasping_ at his fucking testicles. Were this any other evening in a normal bed, under sheets or under a spotlight, whatever _she like_ s, he’d be happy to oblige her wild fantasies. _Not like this.._.

 _“I want you to,”_ Vanya whispers, heavy implications in her voice, and some of his fears melt away.

This isn’t going to be torture. Rather, it is, perhaps. But not in the way he’s expected it to be. This way is much worse, if he can’t participate for the fucking _shackles_ around his wrists...

“Dear, there are plenty of better ways to bed me, don’t you think?” Pagan tries to chuckle, tries to make himself sound amenable.

His voice comes out a strangled, half-assed whine instead. She laughs. A hard, singular laugh. Like he’s pathetic, or sorry, or just sad. Those long, delicate fingers of hers he can just imagine wrapped around his throat close around his flaccid cock instead, giving a single, stroking tug that has him trying to bring his knees in and squirm away from her touch.

“Plenty of other ways, sure. None of them possible when I’m on a plane back to America, don’t you think?” She says, and the words slam heavy like a brick on his chest, dropping his limbs to the table as she lets him go and steps away from him.

 _“This_ is what you’re going to talk about right now?” he almost cries.

Vanya is back to him in moments, and he feels the weight of her settling on his abdomen. Palms spread on his stomach, hair pooling against his ribs. She’s listening to his heartbeat perhaps, resting her head on him. _Fuck,_ how desperately he wants to tear his hands from these restraints and tangle his hands in the soft curls of hair he can feel against his flesh, tightening his nipples for how they tickle at him.

“Why don’t we talk about Ishwari next? Or Ajay, and how he tried to kill me once? Oh, or the state of the god damned country as a whole while we’re at it, and how much of a royal fuck-up I am my dear,” Pagan finds himself prattling, just trying to drown out the music that’s dizzying him, the aching _need_ consuming him, “Or how I’ve gone and practically ruined your life haven’t I? All to fuck your father over and drag him back here by the balls. Gone and made you fall for me, broke our hearts, fucked _everything to bits...”_

She lifts away from him, vanishing away into the darkness and the dizzying drums and fog again, and he audibly cries out for the loss of her warmth against his torso.

“Pagan. _Shut up,”_ Vanya hisses, and her voice is very close.

He’s come to be very familiar with this particular proximity. She’s in his face, breath blustering across his parted lips as he tries to talk himself through his repressed feelings. Only now he can’t look at her, even if he wants to. She lingers there, letting him pant and tremble and crumble and dissolve away, surrendered to her.

_Dun, dun, dun, geri..._

Gone again, back into the mist, back into his own thoughts and the song he’s come to find himself fond of. She has it on loop, for some reason, perhaps she’s particularly keyed into it herself.

The weight on the table shifts. He feels a hand settle beside his ribs, and a bare leg beside his hip.

 _Fuck, good god._ He’s achingly hard, he realizes, as though the throbbing weight resting against his belly hasn’t been an indicator thus far. Six thousand thoughts rushing through his head, most of them focused solely on how he could possibly figure out a way to dislocate impossible joints and slither out of these manacles.

He can’t even picture her above him as she must be though he can feel the weight of her resting above his thighs, the trembling of her legs. How radiant and triumphant she must look, flushed and naked and freckled all over, wild raven curls, eyes on fire, wide hips, small breasts, _everything just right, holy fuck he loves her..._

Vanya grasps him, adjusts him, and in the blur of all of a second, she’s sinking onto him, taking him into her tight, slick heat. Trembling, clenching, gasping until she’s sat properly in his lap and he’s choking for air, trapped under the weight of her strong body. _Inside her._ And then she’s rising, slowly, pulling away from him almost like she can’t bring herself to do so, drawing out the softest croon from her own lips. Her hands scrabble to find purchase on his chest, bearing weight on his shoulders where she won’t cave him in, and she comes alive on top of him in a feverish haze like the primal swell of the music drowning them both out.

All Pagan can do is shudder out her name in a strangled moan, lose himself to the three senses he can feel at the moment. The tremble of her hands as she rises and falls, dropping on him with a purposeful, urgent rhythm, taking all of him into her like they’re meant to fit together like this, dirty fucking to some ridiculous, ancient blood healing chant in her father’s personal office. The way she pants, ragged and sweet and with the softest gasp of her voice above her head, is infectious. Makes his cock twitch, has him scrabbling against his restraints as that tugging knot of pleasure starts to build in the pit of his stomach.

With a kick of his feet, a little testing shifting, he finds enough purchase to rock up into her, needing _something_ other than to fucking lie here and take it. It’s difficult, and his ankles rage from the strain the manacles put on them at this angle, but the sweet whimper he’s rewarded with makes everything worth it.

This can’t be real. A fever dream induced by the pain in his back from the shock she gave him, and the loss of his sight, and this entrancing music calling to some deep primal part of him, punctuated by the slick, hard slapping of skin on skin, her body meeting his. Surging into her, being _fucked_ by this wild woman, at her mercy. She can’t be real, just an apparition his mind is feeding him to cope with _something_ he must need. Even as she cries out his name, loud and clear, and squeezes on his shoulders.

Vanya leans down, sliding along his body at a new angle, drawing him deeper into her tight, quivering body, and her breasts drag along his chest. Her hair falls into his face, tickling him, and in his darkness he smells that painfully familiar Vanya smell. From the car ride to Fleming Field, from her shirt bunched up on his pillow, _from the airplane, tickling his face just like this._

Pagan reacts bodily, needing to reach her, to reach out to her in the darkness and grab onto the anchor of this familiar sense. Of her, the smell of her hair, her scent, their sex... much cleaner than their drunken un-showered interlude, but so painfully not-forgotten. His shoulders slam forward as he grunts, fighting his manacles, trying to grab at her, draw her to him.

Startled, Vanya pulls away. Entirely. She lifts up and off him, off the table, and he feels tears welling in his eyes for the sudden rush of bitterness. He’s fucked up again. Poked another bear, gotten bitten again. He can’t win.

“Come back, _please, oh fuck,”_ he pleads, not above begging.

He’d been so close. _They’d_ been so close, he could feel her clenching, gasping, teetering...

“Vanya... ohgod Vanya please. Please I’m sorry I won’t hurt you I wasn’t trying to hurt you...”

She doesn’t return to him, leaves him alone and cold and strangled in the darkness. His hearing has become so fine-tuned to the room that he can hear her footsteps padding across the room. She’s not coming back...

“Oh, christ, shock me if you want, if it makes you happy, just come back. We don’t have to... I just want to hold you, let me hold you,” he begs, far beyond dignity.

If her original intent was to break him, she’s succeeded.

The music is off now, but she doesn’t return. He can hear her panting heavily now, breathing hard through her nose. However, Vanya doesn’t leave, either. Which means either they’re still locked in here together and only Paul can let them out, or...

Or she’s thinking about it. _Oh god, please._

“Can you at least take the blindfold off?”

His words echo through the now-silent room, ringing back in his ears with much more weight, much more gravity. Vanya holds her breath after sucking one in, and on the hard exhale she comes back towards him, her steps growing closer as she pads barefoot across the floor. His heart flutters with each step he hears, anticipating her next move.

First his ankles are freed, and by god his knees sing as he bends his stiff legs. Vanya hesitates at the cuffs binding his wrists, her fingers trembling on his palms.

“Please. _Please,_ I only meant to pull you to me, I... you didn’t feel real, and then there was your hair in my face, smelling you, and I just reacted...” Pagan whispers, holding onto hope, “I’ll gladly sit here placid on this blasted fucking table and let you whip me, shock me, _shoot me_ if that’s what you must do, love but...”

Vanya turns the key to his manacles with a click, freeing him, but neither of them move. She’s heard him say it. Even as an endearment, it’s there on the table just like he is. And she’s set him free.

Pagan sits up slowly, carefully, trying not to startle her as the table creaks beneath him. No sudden movements. That’s the game he’s playing now until she’s back in his arms, if she ever will be again.

When he’s massaged his wrists to get the blood flow back in his hands, he pushes the blindfold up off his head, letting it fall behind him carelessly. Vanya is standing before him, just out of arm’s reach, looking like a frightened doe caught in the crosshairs of a rifle. She looks just how he’s imagined, if not a little more frightened. Flushed pink all over and trembling hard from shoulder to ankle with that frenetic energy she’s come to possess, chest heaving with heavy, even breaths.

Her body is much womanlier than he’d have given her credit for at her height, more curve and supple bosom than her choice of wardrobe lets on at first glance. Spacious hips that won’t break with a good, hard _fuck_ , pert nipples begging to be tugged on, lapped at... Not a sex object, no, but right here right now she’s terribly arousing. It’s not long before he’s trying to fight off an erection again, if only because she’s given no indication that she’s willing to try this again without restraints.

In fact, she hasn’t said a thing, not since she climbed atop him and took his cock all in one go like some god out there had made her just for him.

“Vanya...” Pagan tries, afraid to move an inch as though she’ll spook and flee like a wild animal.

The moment he opens his mouth, it turns out, is the moment she’s had enough, or perhaps that she has second thoughts, as she starts to back up in long strides, sinking back into the shadows outside the halo of bright lamplight.

_No, no, can’t. Please._

Panicking, he finds himself stumbling off the bed on legs numb with pins and needles, catching up to her faster than she can back away despite his wobbly gait. He doesn’t grab for her so much as they crash into each other, grasping and crooning and tangling together like it’s been too long since they’ve been together. Mere minutes since they’ve been together, and already long enough to feel like hours.

“Pagan...” Vanya finally says, finally whimpers against his lips as she slips her palm across the back of his head, finding a tender and bruised spot there.

All the gripping panic, all the worry, everything pressing on his chest slips away with her in his arms like this. She’s been here before, but now it’s just the two of them, skin on skin, aroused and yearning and connecting in a way they’ve never allowed themselves to. Whatever barrier had been built so wide and tall between them, this wild woman has crumbled it to the ground. By cuffing him to a table, no less. And he can’t even blame her for that. Had she simply stood there and let him argue with her over dinner up there at the fete, he’d have forced her out of the country himself if she’d tried to stay behind.

Now he can’t imagine her leaving. She won’t, not if she doesn’t want to.

“I need to finish what you started,” Pagan murmurs, low and heated, pressing his forehead to hers.

Vanya considers his offer, thinking far too long in for the fact that she’s got his erection shamelessly pinned against her hip, rocking into it as they meld together.

“I’m in control in here, _dusha,”_ the spitfire woman grins, a glitter in her eye that sets his heart on fire.

“Very original, _dúshé,”_ he draws his hand up, brushing a thumb across her cheekbone, tracing the smattering of freckles he’s thought about in his dreams, “But who owns this whole damn country, hm? _King.”_

Vanya narrows her eyes at him, draws away from their tight embrace, and reaches down to grab a tight hold on his cock. He stiffens, mouth drawing a tight line, and he lets her assert her dominance for a moment. It’s not like her hand doesn’t feel lovely squeezing his still-slick erection, gripping just right, almost big enough to cover the length of him. He’s already leaking pre-cum again, if he ever really stopped.

When she seems satisfied with her power play, Pagan’s hand darts out between Vanya’s legs, slipping between her soaking lips and delving right into her aching quim, three fingers arching just so into her tight heat. She croons, taken by surprise, and the way her eyes glaze over sends a ripple of satisfaction right through him.

“We’ll compromise, my love. _Darling,”_ he covers his slip, cursing himself, “Come here.”

 _God bless her,_ she follows as he tugs her backwards, leads her right to Paul’s favorite chair in the middle of the room. Before he can sit himself down as he’s intended, she’s got herself bent over the back of it, legs planted wide, _shamelessly on display_ for him. Everything he missed up there on the table, here it is now, waiting for him. Not compromise, apparently, but her own surrender now.

Wasting no more of their precious, urgent time, Pagan grasps her by the hips, stepping in close, and in two blind bucks of his hips he’s engulfed again in her deliciously tight body. Vanya squirms, pressing back on him, reacting so much more readily to him now that they’re doing this _together_. And _fuck_ , how much better it is now that he can feel her, grasp her, pull her back to him as he bucks forward. Paul’s chair isn’t much of a stable _thing_ for them to fuck so feverishly up against, but he can feel his orgasm building quickly, and god damn if he isn’t slightly determined to do this right here, right now, and make a mess of it. A good old _fuck you_ to Governor Harmon for good measure, icing on the cake.

“I’ve needed you for so fucking long,” Pagan huffs, “you beautiful, _wild woman.”_

Vanya keens, throwing her head back, easing back into him as he ruts into her, and he knows she’s close. She won’t get far without help, teetering on the edge, and he hooks one hand around and beneath her, seeking that tight swollen knot behind the hood of her. The moment he brushes against it she cries out, and her knees nearly buckle.

 _“Shit_ I’m gonna-” she whines, “god, right there, please.”

“Come on,” he growls, so terribly close to his own demise, his knees threatening to buckle for the force of this climax building in him.

In another five strokes the both of them blow apart, one after the other. Pagan sobs out a ragged cry as he doubles over her, surging into her and pressing there firmly, spilling his seed deep inside her spasming, trembling body. Claiming her, becoming one with her, giving himself to her body and mind.

He comes down before she does from the blinding bravado, and nearly falls over her in the head-rush that follows. Careful not to topple them both, he pulls himself from her and helps her up onto her feet, dropping them both to the floor right where they’ve stood, clutching her close to his chest. His hands are shaking, and he can barely catch his breath. His body is singing, alive with some new and beautiful thing he hasn’t felt in over a decade. And god, that’s a frightening thought as he runs his fingers through her wild curls, as she nuzzles up beneath his chin and huffs heated breaths across his collarbones.

It’s been _so long_ since Ishwari. Two decades spent alone, shuttered up in his cozy palace, counting his numbered days between coke benders and death threats. Two decades, and now it’s this spitfire loose-cannon half his age who’s done him in, now curled up and laid back with him on the dirty floor of his Governor’s fucking torture chamber. _Her father’s torture chamber._ And none of it matters. Not a lick of it. This is what they are, what they’ve become, and apparently what he’s signed up for.

“Pagan?” Vanya murmurs, voice sweet like sticky honey as he breathes in the cloying smell of her hair, so dear to him.

“Hm?”

“This is lovely, really I’m enjoying this, I _needed this_ but, uh,” she hesitates, and for a moment he’s worried she’s going to leave him, “I need _more.”_

Vanya lifts her head up, propped on her elbow, and she hitches one leg over his thigh. Her cheeks are still blossomed with the flush of their passionate interlude. She gazes down at him, and Pagan is _relieved_ to find he can meet her gaze with no fear now. In fact it feels good to meet her eye, see her in this new, glowing light they share. Like a shiny new outlook on everything.

“What do you mean?” he asks, reaching a hand up to tuck some of her wild curls behind one ear as they fall from her shoulder, tickling his face, “You’re going to have to give me some time if you’re expecting us to make love again.”

“O-oh,” she stutters at his mention of the word, averting her gaze, “I mean couldn’t you... fuck I don’t know.”

“Oh, darling girl. You couldn’t possibly think of _any other options...?”_ Pagan smirks, pressing, “The ever-surprising Miss Rotenberg has no more kinks up her sleeves she wants to try after she’s cuffed the King of Kyrat to an examination table and electrocuted him? I never gave you my consent you know...”

Vanya wilts, falling back to his chest, and she hides her face in his neck.

“Sorry,” she mutters.

“Vanya. Vanya, _look at me, love,”_ Pagan says firmly, hooking a finger under her chin, trying to pull her up, get her out of her shell, “Are you really going to crumble so easily? Strong, resilient, _unbidden_ , and you’re going to fold like a parasol the moment I tease you?”

The corners of her lips pull into a wry smile, and she allows him to pull her into a kiss, stealing the breath from him for how _right_ it feels. No more self-imposed walls built up between the two of them.

“I love you,” Vanya says then, and there’s that bright, shining ember in her eyes plain as day.

He understands now, what it’s been all along, more than anything else. Under the rage, the anger, the _anything else_ , it’s always been love at the kindling of that fire when she’s looked at him. And fuck, it hurts, but this time it’s the kind of pain he’s needed to feel for so long. The kind of pain that reminds him he’s still alive to feel it, even if he’s been trying to ignore it for so long. That he’s fortunate to have a heart, a brain, a body to go on feeling it, this purely _human_ thing.

For her, his spitfire woman.

“I love you too,” Pagan says, firmly, and with those four words he’s given himself over to her irrevocably.

Gently, carefully, he gets Vanya laid on the cold floor, hovering over her and adoring her with his hands as she rests her arms above her head. Feeling, squeezing, pressing his palms over the soft, heated expanses of her supple body he’s longed so desperately to explore since the moment they first collided. She’s already fired up for him again, gasping and cooing and writhing under his touch as he brushes his thumbs along her nipples on another circuit up her ribcage. She’s ticklish under her arms, he learns this quickly as his fingertips graze over the tender flesh there and she clamps her arms down instinctively with a giggle.

“I want you to fuck me...” Vanya purrs, a lopsided smile tugging at her plump lips, and he shakes his head.

“No, _dusha_ , I can’t. Let’s try something new,” he offers, much to her disappointment.

Before she can complain too much, _greedy girl_ , he moves down between her legs, parting her thighs and moving between them. Vanya’s seeking hands follow him as he goes, shooting out to grasp at the hair on the top of his head, and as she lifts her legs over his shoulders, he can’t help but look up at her, admiring the view of her staring down at him from this angle. Wide eyes, surprised, chest heaving in anticipation as he uses his thumbs to spread her lips and drag his tongue up her soaked, aching quim.

She squeals as his lips close in on the swollen knot of her clitoris, lapping and sucking until she’s writhing and wriggling against him.

“Fuck, Pagan,” his lover pleads, carding her fingers through his hair and knotting them tight, tugging so hard it nearly hurts, “Please, yes, justlikethat _ohgod_ I’m coming.”

Just as soon as the words have left her mouth, she’s already coming undone, legs going stiff, heels digging into his back. She snaps like a bowstring, letting loose suddenly with a yelp, and falls boneless to trembling spasms as he draws her orgasm from her, refusing to pull away until she’s begging him to stop, pushing his face away from between her legs.

Breathless, Pagan wipes his mouth on the back of his arm and crawls up to flop down at her side, cold, hard floor be damned. When Vanya regains movement in her limbs, she’s back to his side like a magnet again, curling into his arms and pressing her face into his chest.

“You smell so good, you know that?” She huffs, then inhales deeply in the soft hollow on his throat, and he can’t help but laugh aloud.

 _“Yes,_ I’ve been told that.”

His heart thrums a happy rhythm in his chest as Vanya’s breathing calms, and despite everything else in the world going on around him, he’s at peace for the moment. He’s too damn tired to worry about finding a blanket or any kind of creature comfort for their night’s rest. Vanya is already half asleep in his arms, well-spent and apparently appeased after all their tumult from earlier.

And here they both are, two hours ago at each other’s literal throats, full of fury and pent-up resentment. Ready to never see each-other again, burning bridges and putting up walls left and right but never building structures with them. Now curled up together, committing to this thing neither of them fully understands. They can work it out in the morning, when they can think more clearly.

For now, there’s a new _something_ rooted firmly in his chest, watered and nurtured by the someone nestled trustingly _on_ his chest, this Vanya-shaped love.


	10. Looking Glass, Reflections

Hell of a night, hell of a party. _Hell of a welcome home to Kyrat, honestly._ Can’t have worked out better for him, really. Pagan is chained up downstairs, having gotten a thorough working-over most likely. Vanya is surprisingly alright with everything going on around her. Things back home will have to be settled at a later date, and certainly not in person, unfortunately, but... no matter! _De Pleur is back in business._ Back in the saddle, back to work, still in his prime. Just a bump in the road really.

Morning coffee in hand, house slippers on, Paul parks himself on a cushioned seat looking down into his favorite room in the manor. He’d been sure to get the guests out quickly after things had gone south last night, but all the same he’d been happy to have what small length of a party he’d been bequeathed. It doesn’t register to him at first that he doesn’t see Pagan spread-eagle on the examination table where he should be down there. No, King Min is seated comfortably, cross-legged in his _favorite chair_ , fingers steepled, facing him head-on like he’s been waiting for him to sit just where he’s sat now.

_Vanya, what did you do last night?_

_“Ah,_ good morning De Pleur! I hope you had yourself a lovely evening! Enjoyed the rest of the fete?” Pagan calls up, voice half-muffled through the reinforced glass, shit-eating grin on his stupid fucking face, “I’m sure you did! You must have, if you were so eager to pass off the chance to torture your employer to _someone else!”_

Paul swallows hard, clenching his mug of coffee. His finger still hurts, damn those crooked lower teeth of his. Who would have expected him to _bite?!_

“You know, that _really_ wasn’t my idea. If it were up to me, we’d have continued on with that party, doing shots of sambuca and prosecco ‘til the sun came back up,” he says, trying not to falter in his cheery façade, “I’m grateful for your hospitality. I’m uh, glad you convinced me to come home!”

It’s fine! Everything’s fine! If it isn’t, it will be...

“Why don’t you come down here and bring me my clothes, at least, Paul?” Pagan suggests, standing up and stretching hard, and oh god.

_Nope, don’t look._

_“Jesus_ Christ I’ll be down in a minute, get a towel or something and cover up, please!”

He’s seen his fair share of naked men. Daily, back during the heyday of his parties at the City of Pain. It’s just a given, getting so close and personal with the human body, figuring out its secrets, disposing of it afterward. Of all the cocks Paul has never wanted to see a second time, it’s the King of Kyrat’s, his god damn boss’s. Once, sure, when he could avert his eyes and get him undressed and have Vanya get the towel over his lap. Is he jealous? Size envy, maybe?

Should he be comparing himself in size to the briefest mental image of the King’s flaccid fucking tackle while he jogs downstairs to fetch and deliver him his clothes? _No, but here he is._

Not a pleasant thought for eight in the morning.

Paul unlocks the door to his work room, shoves his arm through clutching a fistful of Pagan’s clothes – conspicuously devoid of his personal affects that had been stashed in any of the pockets – and locks him in again without ever having to look at his bare ass or broad, freckled chest.

“Just tell me when you’re dressed. I’m not coming in there until you are. _Not_ what I wanna see,” Paul grunts towards the closed door, listens as he hears Pagan shuffling about.

A few minutes later, Pagan knocks at the inside of the door.

“You can let me out now, _thank you,”_ Min says, and Paul can’t help but to grin.

“No-can-do Pagan. Gonna have to ask you to back up and let me in there.”

There’s no way Pagan’s going to go along with this, not now that Vanya has apparently fucked everything up and let Pagan out of his restraints. He’ll have to ask her about it later on their drive down to Varshakot, _scold her_ if he has to, as strange as that is. Father-daughter talk time sounds inevitable, and he’s almost terrified of the concept. He can relate to a nine year-old, but will things work with this woman pushing thirty? So much to make up for...

“Alright, Paul, I’m sitting on the table,” he hears Pagan’s voice, further away from the door than before.

“Wh...really?”

One crack in the door, one haphazard peek that could likely get his face stabbed by any number of tools Pagan could have grabbed, and _yes,_ he is indeed perched nonchalantly on the examination table. One leg up, one leg hanging off the edge of it. Alright then...

Before Pagan can change his mind, Paul hurries in and grabs at the closest sharp object he can find. A fucking scalpel, of all things, which won’t do him much good in any real emergency. But Pagan doesn’t move, merely watches him with that detached, amused stare he’s grown to dislike so much in the years he’s known the man.

“You try any funny business, I _will_ string you up to this rack and electrocute you myself,” he warns, padding over to his now-vacant chair when the King makes no indication that he’s planning to make his escape.

“I had enough of that last night, thank you,” Pagan shrugs, sprawling back onto the table using his bespoke jacket as a makeshift pillow, “And I’m not too keen on spending the night sleeping on the cold floor again, if you please.”

“You know, she’s a firecracker...” Paul finds himself musing as he thinks of Vanya, of her rash demands, facilitating this whole ridiculous fiasco, “I can see every bit of myself in her. She’s definitely my daughter... it’s crazy that Kyrat’s the place that’s brought that out of her, don’t you think?”

Min slumps further into the examination table, straightening his legs out and sighing almost wistfully. For how long the two of them spent down here together, it’s almost strange that he’s so _content_ with himself.

“Kyrat brings out the worst in people, Paul. Or the best, depending on how you look at it,” the King says, staring up at the ceiling.

Paul tips his head in confusion, sips at his cooling coffee before speaking again. Needs to process what he’s watching unfold before him, an entirely unexpected result of being tortured all fucking night.

“What did she end up doing to you?” he blurts out, and nearly bites his tongue the minute the words have spilled forth.

_It’s fine! Everything’s fine._

Pagan bristles, but in the _wrong way._ He doesn’t recoil, doesn’t shudder at the thought as anyone would when being asked to recall an evening of trauma or pain. His eyes soften considerably after a moment as he processes the question, perhaps coming up with an answer, and something clicks in Paul’s head.

_No, oh no. Vanya, you sick, twisted-_

“Paul, I don’t think you want to know, suffice to say I had a _wonderful_ evening,” Min says, a smile twisting at his lips until he’s grinning wide, rotting at Paul’s nerves, “so thank you for, ah, _enabling us.”_

That’s a thing right there...

 _“Okay!_ Moving on!” Paul scrambles to regain control over the sudden derailment of his day with a matter of a few sentences, trying desperately not think about what exactly he’s implying.

The King sees his distress, picks up on the blatant discomfort written across his face. He smirks, sitting up on the table again, and leans forward with both hands on his knees. Looks him right in the eyes, manages to hold his gaze despite how badly he wants to slap that smug look off his face.

“We _fucked,_ Paul.”

_Oh my god._

“That’s my fucking daughter you cunt,” Paul snaps, gritting his teeth.

_No thank you, not this morning. Everything is fine, he’s lying, it’s bullshit. Meant to get under his skin, revenge for doing this to him._

“I bent her over that chair right there, your favorite chair. She nearly clawed it to shit, getting _rough with me...”_

 _“Alright_ that’s quite enough! Fucking. _Disgusting,”_ he interjects, scrubbing at his face as he shoots up out of the chair, sending it toppling backwards and clattering loudly to the floor.

Pagan snorts through his nose, eyes alight with mischief, and it takes all his self-control not to throw himself at him. It’s fine! _Can’t play the game of life with sweaty palms,_ Dr. Phil says.

“Oh, my apologies, have I taken you out of your comfort zone? Does it press the wrong button to know that a fully-grown woman should choose to be intimate with a man of her fancy?” he asks, rolling his eyes heavily with every fucking word, that god-damned pretentious accent of his making it _so much worse,_ “Does it ruffle your feathers to know that it’s _me_ she chose to sleep with? That your daughter used you as an accomplice to facilitate her own little _wild_ sexual fantasies down here? Oh, De Pleur. I’d say I pity you but, really, I’ve had the night of my life at your expense. Like it or not, Vanya is a _grown woman._ A woman whose life you’ve been terribly absent from in the ways that matter. You’ve got no right to be so upset, really. Poor sod.”

Like a needle in a tire, Paul deflates with a slow, sorry wheeze through pursed lips. Pagan is right, much as he really, _really_ squirms on his feet knowing the two of them did... _things_ down here last night together. _On his favorite fucking chair!_

"I’ll have someone bring you down some food,” Paul barks out gruffly, shutting himself off.

_Put on your social mask. Everyone has one. Chapter four of that wonderful self-help book. Personal Bible of his, at this point._

“You’re really not letting me go, then?”

“Vanya’s orders, boss. No-can-do,” he says, taking great pleasure in the gravity of what he’s doing.

This is treason in its own right, even if Pagan cooperates. He’s got the King of a fucking country, murderous madman, _killed-someone-with-a-pen-once fucked-his-daughter-last-night_ kind of crazy, prisoner in his fucking basement. And in this moment, if Pagan doesn’t like what he hears, this may very well be the end of Paul’s very short return to Kyrat.

 _“Well,_ tell her that I do indeed have important business to attend to at the palace, when you do see her please,” Pagan waves his hand with a dismissive roll of his eyes.

_Is he really okay with this?_

_“Uh,_ will-do, uh, Your Highness,” Paul says awkwardly, making for the door.

He’s halfway through it when Pagan clears his throat, and he turns back inquisitively, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh, and, Paul. Do tell your _dushka_ she can’t have your job, will you? You’re not up for replacement.”

-

By the time Paul has gotten to Varshakot, two of his men are waiting on the road with anxious postures, terrified faces. They usher him in, lead him aside, and make sure the coast is clear before the two of them nearly blurt at the same time, shouting over each other in a competition to get the news out quicker.

_Itisyourdaughtersirsheisamessthereisbloodweareafraidtogointhereshemighthave--_

“ _Shut_ the fuck up and calm down, both of you!” De Pleur bellows, clapping them both firmly on the shoulders and holding them firmly in place, “Slow down, one at a time, what’s going on?”

“Your daughter, sir, the, uh, the _wild one,_ she... _took a hike down to the lake, sir,”_ the shorter fellow trembles, lip jutting out like he’s just about to cry.

“A-and when she came back she was _covered in blood,_ carrying a screaming Golden Path rebel, sir…” the other one picks up where he left off, voice rising in fervor as he goes.

Paul blinks, staring them both down, and shakes his head. Tries to sort the details out. Comes up with nothing. There's no way they're talking about Vanya.

“Well none of that sounds terrifying to me, boys, so why are we in an uproar?”

“You do not understand, sir, she… she was _grinning ear to ear._ Absolutely glowing like she had just had…”

“The night of her life?” Paul interrupts unwittingly, then bites his lip.

_Wrong, Paul, wrong. Let that go._

“Uh, no sir, what S-Sanani means is she looked… _off_ … sir...” the first soldier says, and his comrade nods in agreement readily.

“Yes, Juddha said that three weeks ago she and King Min were ambushed on the road near Rajdgad, sir, and back then she did not know how to use a gun she said. But now she has brought this rebel back, and she says she _shot the other one in the head from across the paddy and…”_ Sanani hiccups, eyes going wide, “she asked us to call her… oh I cannot remember…”

Paul has heard enough. He releases their shoulders, shoves them back, shaking his head _. Not Vanya. No way._

“Gentlemen, I thank you for your report. At ease, I'll uh. I'll deal with my daughter,” he says flatly, sighing as he watches the two grown men cave in on each other in relief.

By now his corporal has joined them, standing at attention with a salute as Paul turns on his heel and strides off away from the teetering mess of the two of them. Whether or not they're telling the truth or she's put them up to some mischief, he's clearly missing a big piece of information here.

“Juddha,” Paul says as they match pace, leading off towards the main building, “what the fuck happened? Vanya and Pagan were hit by ambush? And she's going by _what now?_ Are they serious?”

“She has asked us to call her _Gadyuka,_ sir. Whatever that means. She and King Min singlehandedly took out a total of twelve rebels in all at the site of their ambush, no backup,” Juddha says matter-of-factly, “and yes, I promise you she is in the auxiliary building with a captive now, awaiting your presence.”

_Jesus Christ Vanya…_

_Viper?_

Marina was over-fond of tossing out the word at her opponents like an insult when she lost at beer pong in college...

God, he's missed a _lot_ in her life…

-

Just as promised, when Paul pushes open the door to the small structure they've been using as a storehouse, he’s met with loud _throat singing_ and heavy drum beats. Vanya is teetering over an unconscious Kyrati sprawled out on what was once just a table. An average, wooden table used for storing things that are now strewn about the ground, likely having been shoved off in a hurry to make room for this _victim_ of hers. Her hair is wilder than usual, snarled and matted with dirt and blood, just the same as her gray shirt and denims. She looks like she’s been through hell and back, and yet when she whips around to greet him her eyes are big and bright, her smile just as wide.

 _“Paul,_ hey! Dad!” she chirps, practically thrumming to the beat of this strange foreign music she's managed to pull up on someone's phone… _whose phone?_

“Hey where'd you get a cell phone?” Paul mumbles, and _fuck_ he needs to stop blurting out the first things that come to his mind before they get him killed.

“Oh, it's his. You get good service here, I was able to pull up some good work music. I like that you do that, I've always done it too. With anything,” she says, turning back to her _friend_ on the table, plucking at his crude restraints, “writing, drawing, _other shit…”_

 _Other shit…_ did she change out his playlist last night for this before she climbed on the King and went to town? Fucking _work music…_ He may never do his job with music again.

Curiously, Paul shuffles further into the room and takes a seat on a stack of crates near where she's hovering, observing her quietly. Her face is soaked in blood, and her shoulders, especially down the left side of her, down her breast and over her ribs. She’s not injured, _good,_ but she's bloody enough for the two of them, her and her prisoner.

“So you wanna tell me something?” he asks after a long, slightly uneasy silence, tired of _watching_ her watching her unconscious victim.

“Oh, uh. Pagan and I-"

 _“Not that Jesus Christ,”_ he panics, covering his ears, “more than enough of hearing about _that_ today! Why does everyone want to remind me?!”

The world is out to get him. First his capture and escape some months ago. Then Uncle John’s regular visits with Laura even _after_ he'd come home for good. Then Pagan, waltzing right back into his life demanding he pick up back in Kyrat as though he hadn't almost fucking died the last time he'd been here. And now _this,_ of all things. The culmination of a twisted kidnapping plot meant to bend his arm behind his back, meant to grab him by the cock and haul him back here sobbing. All boiled down to _everyone_ reminding him this morning that _yes, his other daughter fucked his boss and oh boy it sure was great, thanks Paul!_

“…you in there?” Vanya says, terribly close to his face all of a sudden, and he startles.

 _“Fuck_ do you do that to everyone?!” he wheezes, clutching at his chest, “I was lost in thought, calm down!”

“As of recently I guess I do, yeah,” she muses, tapping a dirt-crusted finger to her lips thoughtfully.

There’s _so much_ he's gotta learn about her…

“Vanya… are you alright? You've sure changed a lot since you've got here,” Paul says, genuinely concerned, “haven't seen much of you myself obviously, but… _Gadyuka?_ _This?_ What happened, how'd you shoot him?”

His daughter looks down to the Golden Path rebel, running her hand along his bloodied trouser leg, and she gives his knee a pat in a strangely affectionate manner. Beside him, propped against the edge of the table on the floor, is a P416 coated in bloody handprints. Left there like an afterthought. But kept close like a _necessity._ She laughs softly, oh so softly, and his skin crawls. It's been a long time since he's heard her laugh, and this feels like the absolute worst scenario to revisit that once-lovely sound.

“You wouldn’t believe me,” she smiles, “but I guess I don't believe myself either. Everything that's happened since I've gotten to Kyrat seems unbelievable. I think yesterday I just started letting go of that and _believing_ instead!”

“Sure. Whatever you say,” Paul shrugs, voice breaking.

_Weird self-help, dear…_

“While we're talking I'd like you to show me some of your tricks of the trade… could you do that?” she asks, “I learned something from Pagan, I know I told you about that, but I need _more.”_

What a hell of a question, and a supremely loaded one at that. All this time he's spent _hiding_ this very part of himself from his family, let alone hiding from Vanya, and here she is metaphorically shaking his hand not just on neutral ground. No. On _his_ ground.

_Hi dad, looks like I yanked right from your fucked up gene pool and got the short stick. Teach me how to get my rocks off torturing other people for fucking fun, father of mine. By the way I fucked your boss even though he's old enough to also be my dad, hope that's cool._

Oh he can't let this go. This thought is on loop. Please, _please_ let them never touch each other again. He's never prayed for a one night stand for himself, let alone anyone else.

Jesus Merciful God this woman will be the death of him. Twenty-six years spent swallowing back the fear of looking his first daughter in the eye and seeing her for what and who she is, and this is where it's gotten him, baggage and all.

_And she’s got Daddy Issues…_

With a sigh of resignation, Paul stands from the crate and looks over the work set out before him. Before them. He can't say no to her. He never said no to Ashley. And frankly, _Vanya_ _scares him._ He has no idea how she's come to learn how to kill. How to shoot. How to revel in this the way he always has…

-

Exhausted and buzzed on a dizzy high, De Pleur gathers up a six pack of Shangri-Lager and locks the door to the storehouse behind him. He can hear his prisoner wheezing, begging not to be left in the darkness all alone. He’s too high on adrenaline to care, too tired of the stinking room, smelling of sour sweat and the tang of blood and heated metal. Too much on his mind now anyhow, fluttering in circles like tiny moths around a dim bulb, fogged by the overpowering Him that rears its head in dark rooms like that one. Sometimes he can't leave that Paul behind, just has to carry Him along until He quiets down again.

This is something his daughter understands readily in her own way. Vanya calls it her Little Burning Sun. Her fit of all consuming rage, something she's learning to shape. Wants His help taming it into something malleable. This Gadyuka of hers, taking stride and standing tall and empowering her. She had to leave their lesson early, finding herself too overzealous. She's down by the lake now, sitting on the docks, Juddha tells him.

Paul trudges down the main lane, keeping his head down. He's too shaky, too wired to make eye contact with the soldiers he passes. They know not to prod Him. De Pleur is a messy man when he exits a long session with a prisoner. At the forefront of his thoughts, the strongest moth beating itself against the flickering lightbulb, is Vanya's recounting of just how she managed to gather this prisoner up and bring him here…

 _I saw a rifle when I got here,_ she'd said, _and I needed fresh air. More fresh than inside these walls. So I grabbed it and went for a walk. It felt good. Right. Proper, really, to have one back in my hands again. And I walked. Cut a path around the lake. Got to see Kyrat for myself for the first time beyond the confines of the Palace grounds._ She’d paused, looked him over as he showed her how to hold a scalpel just right. Continued on the next breath.

 _I wasn't looking for trouble. Or maybe I was. But then I saw them. Two of those Golden Path rebels, like Pagan told me about. Like who attacked us, bombed our Jeep. Almost killed us. Left that scar on his brow, I don’t know if it's going to ever heal clearly, you know? Jesus I had so much fucking blood on my face, not my own. In my mouth. Bits of brain, probably._ He'd had to shake her, she’d started to cut too deep, drew too loud a scream. Bristled with ripe joy at the sound like He had so many times.

_So I fired on them. Hit the woman in the head with the first bullet, dropped her clean on the ground like a ragdoll. This one caught sight of me in the brush and fired from the hip. Fled across the road and into a paddy, I tried to take him down. Got him in the leg, and his screams… God his screams made me think of the Havildar, how fucking strange it was to enjoy that. So I grabbed him. Hauled him back half conscious to the gates after scrambling with him in the dirt like an animal just because I could for a moment…_

And that was that. He'd tuned out the rest, losing himself in his work. He knows exactly how she'd felt, understands that thrill of stealing his first life, taking that away from someone with the twitch of a finger.

Out the massive blue back doors, down the short dirt road, and there she is off the end of the long dock with her bare feet in the water, still caked in dirt and blood and grime like war paint. At this point he is too, if only his sleeves and the hem of his shirt. Paul isn't the one who carried a wounded man half a mile on his shoulders in the hot sun.

“Hey Van,” he says, boots crunching in the dirt as he approaches, echoing across the still waters of the glittering lake.

“Hey Paul,” Vanya says, not bothering to turn back to greet him.

“Brought a few beers.”

“Cool,” is all she mutters, spreading her palms in the dirt behind her and leaning back against them, “How is it that we’re higher up here, and yet we’re still so low in the valley, down from the mountains?”

“The lake throws you off. It’s my favorite place in this whole fucking country though. Always quiet. Well, usually.”

De Pleur takes a seat beside her on the dock, crossing his legs and resting his elbows on his knees. He looks her over, watches how she basks in the serenity of the early evening light. This is his favorite time of day. The perfect time to reflect, when the sun hits the water just right, makes everything glow like a rich orange mirror. And as he leans forward, there he is, staring back at Himself intently on the rippling surface. Older than he’s ever been, and probably still none the wiser. Vanya leans forward with him, sliding her legs further into the water, pants and all. For a very, very brief moment he fears she’s about to slip right in and drop right under, slide away deep dark and forever gone to him.

This strange and shuddering fear drives him to reach out and clench at her arm urgently, gripping tight. His eyes widen and he draws a sharp breath, going rigid for a moment before his instincts settle. Everything’s alright. She’s fine.

“You alright?” his daughter asks, tugging her arm free rather begrudgingly.

Paul merely grunts in response and reaches back to grab a beer, snatching another one by the neck for her. She doesn’t take it, not even when he opens it for her.

_Whatever, suit yourself, Gadyuka..._

The ale is bitter and dark, maybe even a little older than he likes, but with Noore having to extend her reach into his territory during his absence the raksi production has come to a standstill and Varshakot is sadly dry of the good swill. If he really wants to drink away the pain, forget His problems, this will have to do. When he’s good and heady after the second bottle, Vanya has occupied herself picking leaves and debris out of her matted hair.

“You really should shower, yanno, _miss Viper,”_ he drums up the courage to mention, “Or take a dip in the water. Just mind the big fish. Big fucking teeth.”

Vanya stares at him. _Flatly_. Blinks slowly, tips her head to one side. Studying him, almost detached from him. He can’t help but feel he’s fucked up somehow.

“I’m clean enough, thank you,” she says, running her fingers along the little ridge of her sternum just below her collarbones.

Touching that Sun. He knows. He watched her do it so many times, discovering herself more every time by doing so. Like a Focus.

She’s run her fingertips over the same spot so much on that bare patch of skin above the collar of her shirt that she’s effectively wiped away a clear circle of dirt. A badge of _honor_ in its own right. Much as he fears this woman she’s become, a woman he hasn’t been able to witness developing for all the evading and hiding he’s done... much as he fears her, he’s _proud of her._ There’s an inexplicable urge welling inside him to draw her up tight to his chest and crush her to him like he would have when she was small _if he’d have given himself the chance..._

He’s missed her whole life. Her _entire life,_ all of her development, and none of it shared with him. On display for him to watch indirectly, sure, but... Marina, _god,_ Marina...

_Nope, shove that one in the box for later. Not now, not in front of her. She probably still hurts about her too, asshole._

_“Vanya,_ does he love you?” Paul erupts suddenly, anxiously, grasping out for a third beer from the pack.

“...What?” she asks, eyes narrowing, “I don’t think that’s-”

“Does he love you? Is he going to keep you safe? Treat you right? _Make sure you’re taken care of?”_ he interrupts, words streaming from his mouth before he can catch up to himself in his urgency, “Christ I can’t... I can’t face him again if he fucking hurts you, Van. _What if you two have kids?”_

His last feverish cry rings out over the lake, startles a sambar from the shore, sending it bleating into the brush. Vanya looks like she’s been slapped. He’s gone too far, pushed too much toothpaste out of the tube. The air is still, _so fucking still,_ and a breeze would be merciful right about now. Paul takes a long, long drag from his bottle to steady himself. All the while, his daughter stares him down, aghast.

“With all due respect, _Mr. Harmon,”_ she bites out through her gritted teeth, and oh it fucking stings, “I don’t think you really have a right to talk to me about _children.”_

_Too far, way too far._

“Oh, Van, I’m so sorry, you're right, fuck, I was just... I haven’t had a chance to be a father for you,” he scrambles, trying to backtrack, ”It all just kinda came out, Jesus I’m sorry. I know that was too much.”

“You're twenty-six years late for my first birthday, Paul,” Vanya shrugs, sounding so far detached from them both.

Like she’s up somewhere in the stratosphere, drifting away, already stuffing down the issue and moving on from it. She gets her feet swung up on the dock, and stands abruptly, knocking an empty lager bottle into the lake in her rush to get up.

“Oh _Jesus,”_ is all he can get out as he scrubs his face in his hands, praying she’ll leave quickly before he breaks down too far.

“I love him, Pa-...I love him,” she says firmly, and he hangs breathless on that half of his name he’s somehow earned, “And without Pagan, I’m led to believe you’d have held your secrets til your death bed. You'd have waited to tell me until your dying breath and expected me to cry for you, to cry for my long-lost father. You know I’ve known since I was old enough to recognize you when mom would bring me over for visits?”

A chill washes over him, he can’t feel his extremities. This is how tonight is going to end, then, with the sun setting over the most beautiful scenery in the world. With a prisoner tied to his store-room table, probably bled out by now, two soldiers deserting the army over the terrifying _Gadyuka,_ and with his dau—with _Vanya Rotenberg_ whetting her blade so carefully over his run-ragged throat. If she does it quickly, he can salvage the pieces and try for a working relationship. But she won’t. Not this newly-hatched, still-growing creature she’s become. So much like himself, so much like his own path of destruction here. His first kill, cutting his ties, taking up His title...

She is Him. She knows it, and in the pained spite in her eye he understands her. She _hates_ that this is true.

“Vanya, I’m sorry. Can you give me a chance? Some space, some time, some growing, and we can meet in the middle somewhere? I’ll... I’ll let you come to me on your terms. Whenever you want, honey, just. _Please_ don’t let me lose you, too,” he pleads, voice breaking more than he’s proud of, “...I love you, kid.”

She won’t answer, this New Vanya. Wouldn’t have before Kyrat, either, he figures.

Vanya turns away, bristling, and he knows as she collects her shoes from the dock that they’re through. That his second chance at being her father is well and rightly fucked, and he’s to blame for every lick of it. But then she stops mid-stride, toes just barely touching the dirt at the far end of the dock. She drops her boots, steps into them swiftly. Affords him one quick, emotionless glance as he watches her.

“I love you too dad,” she whispers, just barely a hush over the lapping of the lake, just barely a tickle on his ears.

But he’s heard it, and she knows he has, and she’s gone up the hill and through those big blue fortress gates in mere moments. Paul is left with Himself, his sorry drunken ass cross-legged on the dock. The sun is nearly slouched below the mountains now, nearly gone to bed for the evening. He’ll sleep well, if only because every inch of his sanity and waking energy has been pulled from him all at once like a tiny thread of concertina wire right through his chest.

Right through that same spot Vanya had worn down through the dirt on her own pale flesh.

He can’t even rightly care anymore, not tonight. And so he throws himself back, sprawled out on the docks to watch the stars slowly flicker on like cities on a galaxy map. Fading into the blackening sky until he’s lost in nebulas and constellations and solar systems he can’t even see, just wants to imagine to get himself away from this hate-filled place he’s in. In his pocket, his cell-phone buzzes insistently, a text message.

_Fucking ignore it._

When he can’t lull himself into a stupor by stargazing, Paul flops over onto his belly and buries his face into his arms, pressing his cheek into the cool wood beneath him. His phone buzzes again, a phone call this time. Just at the same time his radio handset patches in with a distress signal.

_Mayday, Mayday. Khilana Protocol. Assume Defensive Positions._

Ohfuck.

_Over. Khilana Protocol._

_All available personnel report._

_Ohfuck_

The compound. The fucking compound. His home.

_Fucking Pagan, defenseless, god damnit!_


	11. Price of Freedom

Vanya sits on the floor in the dark storehouse, her victim fast asleep, or perhaps unconscious, on the table. It was easy to clear the barracks for some privacy to wash up and gather her wits about her. But in this place, she feels most comfortable, perhaps because it’s where she first hatched, first metamorphosized just a handful of hours ago. It’s almost like recharging a battery, being back in here with him in the dark, even if she’s got herself in check now. She won’t be able to sleep for quite some time, not as riled up as Paul has her, his words still buzzing like angry hornets in her head. It’s going to take them a long time to work past these mountains of old, stale problems.

Her prisoner’s cell-phone buzzes on the table where she’d left it earlier, and curiosity gets the better of her. After two tries at remembering the passcode she’d pried out of him, she’s in. He’s received a single text message.

 

_Sabal (8:43 PM):_

_Report in._

 

Strangely, there’s no other messages from him, but as she flicks through his call log, there’s a handful of calls scattered over weeks and months from and to his number. No other texts, no other contacts, _nothing_. He’s got internet service, clearly, she’d had no problem pulling up music to work with. She hovers over the screen with her thumbs, for a moment curiously considering responding to the text message. The Havildar’s desperate pleas, his choked utterances of the very name on the screen flicker past the forefront of her mind.

_Someone in charge. Calling the shots._

This is all she can gather, if any of the miniscule context clues she’s heard over her time here have indicated.

Still can’t sleep. Still not tired. More curious than ever, now, knowing that this important _someone_ from the Golden Path knows his fellow rebel is missing. And so, curiosity gets the better of her as she realizes that here in the palm of her hands is the gateway to the world outside she’s been craving since the moment she was first shuttered up in the palace. An almost giddy rush of excitement flushes over her, raising goosebumps on her arms. It’s been more than a month since she’s even glanced at a search engine, let alone heard any news of the outside world. Everything fed into her brain has been directly from Kyrat.

First thing’s first, Vanya can’t help herself. Paul’s number is the first new contact in the phone, just for the hell of it. She’ll probably sledgehammer the thing later just for the risk of having it, so it can’t hurt to _personalize_ the phone just a little. Maybe send a message, just because she can. Just for the novelty of it. The name that comes up over her message isn’t her own, but whoever’s up there on the table across the room. No matter.

 

_Batsal (8:55 PM):_

_Hey, it’s Vanya. Still remembered the passcode to this dude’s phone. How come Kyrat has smartphones but not fucking showers? Not taking a bucket bath in the barracks ever again._

_Batsal (8:56 PM):_

_Hey, still Vanya don’t panic. I can’t sleep. I know you’re pissed and all, but, like. When are we going back to your place? I’m starving, too. Want a nap. Come on, you can drink more back home_

 

No response.

Either he’s left his phone somewhere, or he’s down there moping and drunk off his ass by now. If worst comes to worst, she can just hitch a ride with one of his men back up to the compound. The way they all flinch away from her, she must have scared them half to death stumbling into the fortress with Batsal on her shoulders. And so suddenly, she’d told them she was _Gadyuka_ like she was a god damned urban legend, a vigilante of justice or a grim reaper come to collect her due, and it stuck.

Time to dig for sweet morsels of information then, as she’s been craving to do. Though many of her questions have been answered now, she’s still got so many things to learn, so many burning thoughts to needle into and lay bare.

The quiet _tick-tick-tick_ of her typing on the phone’s keyboard brings up Pagan Min’s name on whatever default search engine he’s got on his phone browser. Vanya means to dig into wikis, encyclopedia sites, legitimate _history_ on the King of Kyrat, but then... the first suggestion, auto-populated from what Batsal most frequently searches, is _Pagan’s Twitter_.

_That’s a thing?_ And more importantly, she’s concerned to know that this above all else is what this particular member of a terrorist group is searching for about his mortal enemy in his spare time.

She can’t help herself. She’s got his profile pulled up in a heartbeat, feeling strangely nervous about looking for some reason. As though she’s looking into something she shouldn’t be.

“...Real Pagan Min...” Vanya whispers to herself aloud, trying not to laugh aloud, “he’s fucking verified...”

His profile photograph is charming. Just an average, almost homely selfie in his trademark pink suit with a glimpse of the Himalayas in the background. His feed is rife with tweets and retweets of all kinds. Millions of followers, only a handful of accounts followed. He seems over-fond of sharing Outfits of the Day, and Man-Crush Mondays, all of which seem to be either himself or strangely Ajay. Ajay’s twitter, which she’s tapped over to, seems to be mostly inactive save for a few responses to Pagan’s more outrageous tags.

The King of Kyrat has an online following, it seems, to rival any other worldly celebrity. He’s a fashion maven, a social media butterfly, and it seems he enjoys poking fun at the POTUS when he finds the time. Swiping through photos of him, looking at this happy-go-lucky online persona of his, she can’t help but to feel a little guilty. Like she doesn’t belong. Like she’s not the proper woman for someone like him, so much more experienced and established, much more in the public eye than she’d ever thought possible. Not just the King of this tiny country, no, apparently someone people all over the world follow for their dose of online entertainment.

Amid the stream of selfies, political retweets, and photographs of his expensive outfits, she finds a simple tweet from ten days ago buried in his feed. Only text, barely touched by follower activity.

 

**Pagan Min** @realPagan_Min - April 19

funny how difficult simple decisions can be. love, hate, love, hate. torn between wanting to beg for a hug and shove them out the door. ah, to hell with it.

#midnightthoughts #bourbon #loveyou

 

_Ouch._ Pagan was drunk, sleepless, somewhere in this fortress getting the place suitable for her father’s return, and firing off an embarrassing tweet like this for half the world to see. Because of _her_. And here’s his conflict laid bare just for her, surprisingly not deleted yet. Maybe he’d hoped she’d get curious and find it, had hoped this would be better than saying anything out loud.

Vanya continues to flick through his feed, finding nothing more of interest, that little _hashtag-loveyou_ burning all kinds of fluttering feelings in her gut. Paul still hasn’t answered her texts. He must be asleep down there on the dock, or just ignoring her, by now. Outside she can hear a commotion, boots thudding in the dirt and soldiers calling out to each other in Hindi and English alike. At first it sounds just like simple humdrum, a mustering of ranks, but things quickly pick up. Vehicles roar to life, the shouting grows more urgent. More men, more yelling, closer to the storehouse.

The handle on the door jostles hard, and Paul shoves into her quiet place suddenly, pale as a ghost in the dark room. He’s got a tactical vest buckled around his torso, and another in his arms, a rifle slung over his shoulders.

“Vanya we have to go. _Now,”_ he says, practically throwing the vest into her lap as she gawks up at him, “and get that on. You’re not invincible.”

“The fuck’s going on? Are we under attack?” she asks, stumbling to her feet, “You haven’t answered my texts!”

“Haven’t had the time, _thank you!_ Get the fucking vest on. We’re not in danger here but we have to go. Those terrorist fucks picked the perfect time to swarm my house. They’re all over the compound, picking off my men...” Paul grumbles, worry in his eyes, knitting his brows together.

He looks so much older than he did before the both of them came here. Maybe Kyrat does that to a person. She can remember seeing the signs of early aging on his face when he started taking his ‘business trips’ here, wondering why _Hong Kong_ office work would add so many years to a man so quickly. Even Pagan, for as well as he keeps himself together, seems to-

_Oh no_

_“Paul,”_ Vanya gasps as she’s wriggling into the vest, tugging at the straps to get it fitted right, “did you keep Pagan down in your office like I had asked you to?”

The realization sinks over her like a heavy flood of guilt, and she dreads Paul’s response as he turns to her solemnly.

“Yeah,” De Pleur says, and she can hear that he’s thought this through already, “he’s still locked up down there without anything but his clothes. Now _come on._ We have to move.”

-

The drive to the compound is tense. Uncomfortable. Uneasy. The calm before the storm. Paul sits beside her in the backseat of the jeep, wringing his hands together and checking his phone every few minutes. The blue glow of his phone lights up the backseat, catches her eye every time he checks it. After the first few times she notices he’s set the background on it to something new from the almost ever-present cycle of Ashley photos. That selfie of the two of them at Disney, smushed together to fit into the frame together. A happier time for the both of them, genuinely, when he didn't have to try so hard to have a good relationship with her. Pre-Kyrat. Pre-Ashley.

Vanya wants to say something, thinks to mention she remembers the moment they took that photo together, but Paul sets his phone face-down in his lap again and resumes nervously wringing his hands before she can. Up ahead the leader of their three-car convoy slams heavy on the brakes, skidding off to the side of the road. The second jeep brakes hard to compensate, causing their driver to swear and yank the wheel to avoid colliding with them head-on.

_“Jesus!”_ Paul snarls, gripping the seat in front of him, trying to get a good view of what's caused the pile-up.

Out of the first jeep all four of his soldiers scramble armed to the teeth, firing ahead into the darkness, down the road. A rapport of return fire echoes down the valley out of the tunnel ahead of them, dropping one of his men with a shot to the groin, and Paul instinctively hunkers down below the windows of the jeep, demanding Vanya do the same.

“I think it's just a handful of Golden Path at the tunnel, Paul,” she says, “we should be fine, right?”

“They've likely got a fucking road block set up,” he says, “God damnit! Reports before radio silence said twenty men at the compound. Not an organized holdout."

Silence outside, a few testing shots from their side of the line. Vanya lifts her head just enough to see both of the other vehicles have emptied of their occupants, soldiers taking cover behind their respective jeeps. Aimed down the road with rifles and shotguns, braced for _something_.

The middle of the road is clear, though. Both vehicles ahead of them had cleared the road in their haste to stop on a dime, leaving them a straight shot through.

“Get the headlights lined up on the tunnel. Show me what we’re looking at in there,” Vanya urges the driver who shakes his head vigorously, “can this jeep handle hitting a few barricades?”

“We will be sitting ducks! Out in the open in this thing!” he whinges.

One of the soldiers out on the road makes a break from cover, fires into the tunnel. The resounding shout of pain means he’s hit someone in there. A rebel fires back in retaliation, one carefully aimed shot blowing straight through the soldier's head. The muzzle fire lights up the tunnel for just a brief moment. Gives them all the tiniest glimpse of the road block.

All she can think is _Pagan._ Like a flutter of panic. A reminder that stings like a needle through the dull buzz of exhaustion rimming her senses.

“Paul tell him to get us on the road. Get us lined up, tell your soldiers to clear out, and gun it,” Vanya says gravely, grasping at her father’s arm.

Paul blanches and shakes his head.

“They might have explosives in there. That's way too big a risk, Van.”

_“Dad._ We don't have time for this. They're gonna drop everyone who steps out onto the road. They've got the cover of shadow, and we have _no_ time. Pagan is a sitting duck up there. If he isn't already fucking dead,” she stops to shudder at the thought, bites back the tightness in her throat, “just do it. Trust me. Trust my gut. Please.”

De Pleur stares at her long and hard, and she doesn't relent. What good are they either way if they don’t try? They’ll die on the road, or die in the compound, or they'll try to fight and _maybe_ pick off the men here in the tunnel. Wasting precious time the King doesn’t have when he's already in the hornet’s nest up there at the compound.

“Juddha… do it,” Paul says, swallowing so hard she can hear it.

_“Oh Kyra,”_ their driver prays, gripping the wheel white-knuckle and steering them back onto the road, “You better hope you are right Gadyuka!”

Pedal to the floor, palm to the horn, Juddha slams the jeep into full throttle and the soldiers ahead of them clear the way. They close in on the tunnel fast, bright headlights illuminating only three Golden Path clustered tightly together against a makeshift barricade. Nothing nearly as horrid as they've anticipated, but no stopping them either as the jeep smashes through the wooden beams and tosses one unlucky rebel to a rocky death against the tunnel wall.

Rather than stop, Juddha continues on to the compound full-tilt as Paul wheezes and Vanya finds herself giggling with delight. That familiar rush of adrenaline taking over again, making her giddy before she can help it.

“Ohmygodwemadeit,” Paul snickers, scrubbing at his face, teetering on the infectious edge of her laughter, “holyshit.”

“Gadyuka, you are…” Juddha stutters out as he turns them up the winding road.

“A tactical wizard?” Vanya interjects.

Her father snorts and elbows her hard in the ribs.

“…a madwoman,” he corrects her as they round the final bend and cut the headlights on the jeep, “we should walk the rest of the way. Give us more cover, more sneaking until our men catch up.”

And so they muster from the jeep into the darkness as quietly they can, keeping eyes and ears open for any signs of movement. All is quiet, the manor is lit up and pleasantly inviting like nothing is wrong. Just waiting to be entered, for dinner to be had, like _nothing is wrong_.

_Pagan. Oh God, Pagan._

A mantra. Keeping her sane, keeping her steady. She has to keep herself in check. Can't let go yet, not until she knows he's fine.

“What the hell?” Paul hisses in disbelief, “the mayday called for a fucking Khilana Protocol. Everything looks _fine!_ Sonofabitch if this was a false alarm…”

Vanya slaps her hand down hard on his shoulder as his voice begins to rise, catching the sight ahead of them before Paul does. He hushes down when she hauls him back to steady him, and over his shoulder she points a wavering finger.

“Not a false alarm, Paul...” she hisses in his ear, “we're later than we aught to be.”

Laid out like sacrifices on the front lawn beneath the cherry trees, bent backwards, throats sliced open, are _all_ of Paul's household men. Rounded up and slaughtered in a clear message to the Governor. The one body she doesn’t see is Pagan’s, no shock of blonde hair and glittering gray suit among the red and black, but this knowledge doesn’t relieve any of them in the slightest.

_Pagan. Exhausted. Pagan. Focus, Vanya._

Vanya can’t rightly fathom how anyone can so ritualistically lay out men like this. In pools of their own blood, throats cut like cattle. Paul, however, apparently can, as a quiet rage as built in him like thunder.

_“Fucking Sabal,”_ he snarls, low and lethal, “he's here. Has to be. Haughty _cunt.”_

“What?” she asks, “does he have the King? How do you know this is his work? Is this not normal for the Golden Path?”

“Sabal makes sacrifices to the gods. To Kyra,” Juddha cuts in, voice trembling, “like he holds that power, to appease them…”

Righteous man, righteous power. Fucked up religious nutjob in charge of rebel terrorists. Somewhere in there with the King. _Great._

Behind them up the drive, the tires of the other two jeeps crunch in the dirt, headlights cut, navigating in the dark just the same as them. The convoy screeches to a halt and the remainder of Paul's men creep from the darkness, leaving doors open to keep from slamming them and causing alarm. Vanya isn't sure there's even anyone home at this point, for why would they have stayed after rounding up and killing off the men? Paul and Juddha seem far too on edge, however, despite the reassuring silence inside the house.

“Our priority is getting sights on King Min,” Paul turns to his men, rounding them up, “we don’t know who's in there fucking around. But we have to get to the basement. To my office. How are we sweeping?”

Hearing Paul mention _him_ sets off some sort of alarm in her brain. Breaks that dull strumming focus she's been holding onto. When she thinks his name it keeps her in check. Keeps her focused on him. To hear it out of anyone else's mouth is jarring. Shakes her from reality. She winces visibly, tries to shake it off.

_Pagan. Hang on. Coming for you. Focus, Vanya._

“We should not all charge in together,” Juddha warns, “in case they are still in there waiting for us.”

“I’ll take the main entry with Vanya. Juddha, you sweep through the basement and come up the rear, we'll meet in the middle, ground floor,” Paul says firmly, “got it?”

Vanya's eyes widen, her hands fly up.

“Hang on no. No, no. If there's really a teeming nest waiting to ambush us in there, why do you want to go in together? I don't think that's wise,” she urges, “don't hand them De Pleur _and_ his daughter at the same time. I'll take the back door with some of your men. Juddha can go with you.”

“Vanya you don't know what you're doing. You don't know tactics, this isn’t your field,” Paul barks, cutting her out, “not happening.”

“I'm more capable than you think I am. Need I remind you we were ambushed outside Rajgad? Just Pagan on a Dushka and me with a rifle?”

_Pagan. Please. Pagan._

_“Vanya_ this isn't _like that!_ This is a house full of angry fucking badgers with itchy trigger fingers, not a spray and pray scenario. Jesus Christ don’t let me lose you like this, _you don't know everything!”_

Paul's snarling echoes off the walls of the house, raised to such a pitch that the inhabitants of his manor stir. Someone inside shouts, and boots thunder up the stairs. Fuck, no time. Vanya stares her father down, nearly nose to nose, none the wiser that they've startled their adversaries. Her brain is buzzing. She’s fucking tired. So God damn fucking tired. Get through this, get Pagan out, if he's even in there, and everything will be fine.

_Focus, Vanya!_

“De Pleur, sir, we need to get _in there._ I will take Gadyuka, you cut up the front. Just fucking go!” Juddha hisses, and grabs Vanya roughly by the arm, hauling her off around the perimeter in the shadows.

It doesn’t strike her until they're halfway around the side of Paul's manor that _she doesn’t have a weapon._ Juddha and the two other soldiers following up their rear are armed, but she’s very much defenseless, having had no time to grab her rifle from the car. Hadn't thought to do so, honestly. She grips onto the panic bubbling up in her throat and stuffs it down, squashes it out. Repeats his name in her thoughts again, that clarifying mantra. The only thing keeping her steady.

_It’s fine it’ll be fine. Pagan, we're coming, Pagan._

Juddha pulls her off to the side as the two soldiers push through the door swiftly, aiming down their sights, fingers twitching at their triggers.

_Nothing. Silence._

She can’t even hear Paul or the others moving in upstairs. No signs of struggle, and most importantly no gunshots.

In they go, down the dimly lit basement hallway that’s become slightly familiar to her in her time here. Her chest tightens with every step they take towards the door into Paul’s office, towards where she left Pagan mostly defenseless, high and dry. Guilt picks at the frayed edges of her nerves as she swallows hard, mouthing his name with her dry lips.

“Nobody is here,” the soldier at the head of their line utters, “not a soul. Where is King Min?”

His name drops like a bomb on her nerves, even though it shouldn’t. Even though the realization that they don’t have sights on him should hit _harder_ than the simple sound of his fucking name on someone else’s tongue.

_Pagan, still coming for you. I’m so sorry._

By the time they reach the door to the torture chambers, it’s evident the King has had visitors. He’s likely gone already. The heavy wooden door has been pried open from the outside – _their side_ – and the room within is pitch black. There’s not a sound but their own breathing until Paul and his men thunder down the staircase from the side hall, nearly running smack into the four of them as they assess their surroundings.

“Were there any rebels upstairs?” Juddha asks, eyes wide, alert.

“Not a fucking soul. This is fucking _strange,”_ Paul shudders.

“I heard shouting from in here when we started our sweep,” Juddha confirms, “but nothing when we entered.”

“Where’s Pagan?”

_“Stop_ with his fucking name,” Vanya utters under her breath, but none of the men catch what she says.

Paul shakes his head, scrubs his hands over his face as he often does in extreme frustration, and cusses hard through his teeth.

_“Pagan?_ Hello? Are you in there?” he bellows, taking a few tentative steps toward the torture room.

_Stupid_ fucking decision. It may very well be an ambush waiting to happen, all twenty of their assailants waiting in there in the shadows for Paul to conveniently waltz in looking for King Min. It seems Paul hasn’t a care in the world as his hand falls on the splintered door frame and he wedges the damaged door open, peering into the room headfirst.

_Pagan. You're gone. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Oh god, I’m so sorry._

Something scuffles on the wooden floor inside the room, she can hear the scrape of shoes along the boards. Just one set of feet, tensing to take off. A deep breath, drawn in fear from deep within the shadowy belly of the chamber. De Pleur just manages to take an anticipatory step back from the door before it’s quite literally kicked open and Pagan stumbles out, clutching scalpels in both hands. His eyes are wide and wild, his face and chest splashed with still-glistening blood. He looks for all the world like a startled animal in fight-or-flight mode, ready to slash his way through all of them at the slightest hitch of breath or bat of an eye.

Vanya’s heart sinks in an instant, dropping to her heels and then soaring straight through her chest with elation.

_Ohgod safe. Ohgod here. Ohgod alive._

_“Vanya!”_ the King gasps, tossing away his makeshift weapons carelessly and brushing right past Paul roughly on a beeline for her.

“Ohmygod _Pagan_ I was so scared, I’m so sorry, we fucked up, we put you in danger, I’m so sorry,” Vanya sputters, forgetting all about the world around her as his shaking hands close on her face.

Pagan tilts her head this way and that in his hands, feverishly inspecting her for any signs of damage, his brows knitted together with anxious worry. He says nothing at all of her mistake, of the elephant in the room. She can’t find it in her to push his hands away, can barely even remember that others are watching when nobody should really know about the two of them. If there even _is_ a _thing_ to know about. Just like that, all her fears are gone the moment he’s before her, drawing her close and making sure she’s not injured when _he’s_ the one splattered in blood this time around.

Vanya’s hands find their way to his shirt, fisting tightly in the fabric as she’s so used to doing by now, and Pagan crushes her to his chest the moment he’s deemed she’s uninjured, burying his face in her hair. Nothing else matters in this moment as long as they’re both safe, and unharmed, and _here, together._

“I’m so sorry,” she utters, drawing a deep breath as she tries to find her calm in the steady rhythm of his thundering heartbeat, “did they hurt you?”

“No, my love. Two of them tried, and died for it. I’m fine,” he assures her, hooking his fingers under her chin to lift her face to meet his gaze, “I’m fine. We’re fine.”

Vanya remembers they’ve got an audience, if only because Juddha shuffles uneasily, wavers on his feet in her peripheral vision. But then Pagan slides his thumbs so tenderly across her cheekbones, perhaps needing just to feel that she’s real as she so often has needed to feel him before. The world around them is gone again, only Pagan, only her. He doesn’t need to utter a word for all the stories in his eyes, all the burning _loveyous_ jumping sparks from his brown eyes to hers.

He kisses her, _hard_ , lips crashing urgently. Like they haven’t got any time left in the world for this. Like he’s making up for something as they melt into each other, tasting, feeling, reassuring that they’re both still _alive_.

“We’re safe now, _dusha,”_ Pagan whispers breathlessly as they part, pressing an encouraging kiss to her forehead, rubbing tender circles into her back with the flat of his palm, “They’re all gone, I’ve made sure of that. I heard every one of the bastards leave out the back door. Cowards.”

Her pulse is slamming through her like floodwater, dizzying her and energizing her. Bringing her to life in his embrace. Now that he’s safe, now that the threat is gone, she’s nearly giddy with the high of it. They’re the last two lovers on earth.

Bitterly, her father clears his throat, bringing them out of their intimate revelry. She feels Pagan stiffen against her, but she can’t be bothered to lift her head or draw away from him. His skin is warm, his shirt still smells of sweet vetiver and vanilla, like home.

“Listen, this is _great_ , and I’m _fucking happy for you_ , but _please stop,”_ Paul says flatly, “and get the fuck out. Both of you. We’ve got cleaning up to do here, apparently, since those rebel fucks decided to ding-dong-ditch us for fun.”

Pagan scoffs, bristling with pride, and Vanya herself stiffens with him. It’s enough for them all to have lost so many men tonight, and to have been shoved nose to the grindstone. There’s no need for immaturity. Before she can latch onto that angry molten sun, gather up the angriness and volatility to fire off some nasty retort right back at him, Pagan brings her back to reality with a gentle nudge towards the door. Level-headed, calm, collected. Anchoring her to earth.

“Thank you so much for saving me, De Pleur. I sure do owe you one...” he rolls his eyes heavily as he tries to lead Vanya forward with a hand at the small of her back.

She tries to backpedal, to stay and rebuke Paul for his little outburst, but Pagan’s will is much stronger than hers and she caves quickly. The prospect of getting far away from here and back up to the palace for some recouping and rekindling sounds far more enticing the further away from that tense room of soldiers they get.

“You know, dear, I could certainly use a hot shower when we get home. And call me forward, but I’d wager you’d like one too,” Pagan says coyly, “We’ve got so much to talk about, so much to learn...”

Reaching out to the door at the end of the hallway, she presses it open to the cool darkness outside, breathing in the night air. It’s still eerily quiet outside, but at least now things are less threatening. They’re safe. Pagan is here. They’ll be escorted back to the palace in no time. Everything’s going to be alright.

“I love you, still, you know that,” Vanya tries out the words, seeing if they still fit right, and certainly they do.

“I love you too, Vanya.”

She grins to herself as she steps out into the night, blinking quickly to adjust to the darkness. She can’t see a damn thing.

_“I love you too,”_ an unfamiliar voice hisses mockingly in her ear, and before she can scream out a hand is clapped over her mouth firmly, tightly, “Do not move, little dove.”

_No, no, no, no_

Pagan is given no time to react either as an engine roars to life, shining blinding headlights across the side of the house on the scene before them in a swatch of white light. She’s helpless to watch him stumble blearily backwards, covering his dilated eyes as he struggles to compensate for the sudden change. She can’t scream. She’s being held still, can feel the icy cold barrel of a gun pressed firmly to her temple. If she so much as breathes wrong, she’s dead.

Every fiber of her being tells her to kick, to scream and punch and claw and tear at her captor until she’s free of this stranger’s vicious grasp. When her eyes come to focus in the blinding light of the headlights, she sees that Pagan is backed up against the wall of Paul’s manor with three guns aimed directly at his head. Sheer terror is written across his face, sorrow in his eyes. He's not afraid of death, even as it's staring at him furiously down three black barrels. He's afraid of what's happening to her as her captor hauls her backwards, fighting against her sheer size to get leeway.

“Stop struggling, _Gadyuka,”_ her captor snarls, jamming the barrel of the gun harder into her temple.

She cries out against the sweaty palm of his hand, panic rising right up over her little molten sun and snuffing it right out like a tiny matchstick.

The heavy thudding of several pairs of boots echoes down the hallway inside as Paul's mean trod out to finally escort them back to the palace. But there won't be a _them_. The Golden Path bearing down on King Min panic as they hear the Royal Army coming, and make a break for it.

“Damnit,” her captor hisses, “it's your lucky day. We can watch him wither with every step we draw you away. Why are you so special I wonder?”

Watching the same light leave Pagan's eyes buckles her knees, saps the last of her strength from her as she allows herself to be wrestled out of the light and into the darkness of the wilderness, into the unknown. Away from her happiness, away from him as quickly as she's gotten back to him.

_Tired, so tired Pagan. I'm sorry, I love you. Be safe._


	12. Gadyuka

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Heavy torture in this chapter.

“It is Kyra's will that you're still alive, you know. You should think to thank her for that. Were it my choice you would both be out there, throats bared for the gods.”

The two soldiers tremble in their restraints at his words, champing at the yellow gags tied taut in their mouths. They've proven themselves useful so far, but the best has been yet to come. He's itching to be out there, _in_ there, dismantling the place with his own two hands as he's been called to do. But this is not part of the plan tonight. Not part of _his_ plan. Tonight he waits, sitting in this blasted truck with two prisoners in the back seat and Dhonu at the wheel, still smelling the blood of their brothers in arms fresh on his kukri.

Behind him, the larger of the two men keens through his gag, slumping forward in the seat. Again and again he whines, pleading, until he's nearly hoarse from the effort.

“Sabal,” Dhonu says, “Shut him up. _Please_. We found De Pleur's compound. King Min is in there, it is almost done with. Do we need them alive?”

“They have use to us yet, brother,” Sabal says, rubbing at his temples in irritation.

He turns back to the soldiers, irritation burrowing under his skin, but his exterior is calm, cool, _kind._ It has to be. They'll panic otherwise. This is an old game he's played so many times with so many of Pagan's men, and under him De Pleur's soldiers. Just like these ones. Sabal reaches between the seats, reaches behind his prisoner's wavering head, and fingers at the knot tied tightly in the fabric of his gag.

“Tell me, friend, if I untie this, will you cry for help? Now that you know your brothers are dead?” he asks, raising a challenging eyebrow, “or are you better behaved than that?”

The soldier squirms, terror in his eyes, and that’s answer enough. His kukri is well within reach for an easy end if things go south. Not the ideal solution, but one all the same. He nearly weeps with relief as Sabal works at untying the gag, and sputters hard as he pulls the soaked rag from his mouth.

_Pathetic. De Pleur hires weaker men than Pagan._

_“…oh Kyra,”_ the soldier whimpers, lapping at his lips like a drooling hound, “please, I only need water, please.”

“What is your name? I don't think I ever asked,” Sabal purrs, consciously ignoring his request, “we got your partner's name, yes, but… not yours, no…”

“S-Sanani… please, please can I have-"

 _“Shut up,_ Sanani, friend…” he snaps, catching himself in his irritation and smoothing himself out as he continues, softens his words, “tell me again how you came into my company.”

Sanani falls back into the seats as his companion withers at his outburst. His eyes glaze over and he stares straight ahead, through Sabal, through the windshield, through the compound. He's exhausted him, clearly. They've been through these questions twenty times since his capture early this afternoon. There’s no more information he can milk from either of them. And yet there’s something _so satisfying_ about pressing that same button over and over, breaking them both more and more with every repetition.

“I… we… were mustering for the morning and we heard a commotion…” Sanani gasps out, voice wavering on the edge of tears, rehearsed lines repeated like a broken record, “and up the drive into the fortress came that curly-haired terror, that _Rotenberg_ woman. With a terrorist on her shoulders.”

Sabal narrows his eyes tightly at Sanani in warning, biting his tongue. He'll face punishment for each use of the word _terrorist_ later.

“And then she asked us to call her _Gadyuka_. What does that mean? We were scared of her. She was so happy to have that man on her shoulders, bleeding all over her…” he shudders, as he has every time he's told them this part, “and then De Pleur joined her in that room with him, and they tortured him for hours. _Hours.”_

Dhonu stiffens in his seat, grumbles audibly. Insubordination at its finest. He's exhausted of this interrogation just the same as their prisoners. Sabal shoots him a warning glare, but before they can continue their lovely little chat, the roaring of a jeep's engine hums up the drive. Nearly perfect timing, if not a little late.

“It could be you out there with them, you know, if the gods had not willed you to be so useful. Thank you for that, really,” Sabal says offhandedly, gesturing to the row of bodies on display for their guests of honor, “it's your lucky day.”

The vehicle rolls up without any headlights on, creeping in at a snail's pace so it doesn’t cause too much commotion. He can see three figures scrambling out of the car, conversing. They don't see him or his truck, not from where they're parked. And because they've turned their headlights off, leaving them in only the light of the moon as though it helps hide them. Two of them he recognizes, even in the shadows. Paul De Pleur with his pompous swagger, and his commander Juddha. The other figure, _well,_ _she's_ easy to distinguish. Wild shocks of coiled hair, long and untamed. Like snakes, sprouting right from her head and coming alive in the breeze. Rightly terrifying in her own right, tall as the men she stands shoulder to shoulder with.

And then they're off, hauling into the house he knows will be empty the moment they set foot inside. Followed by several more soldiers he hadn’t heard follow behind. This much surprises him, but he should have expected the cavalry. After all, _Pagan Min_ is inside burrowed like an angry viper, striking at his men when they get too close.

Sanani says nothing, good little rat that he is, but his partner has started up his fussing again twofold. They have no time for this.

“Quiet, Yosh, please,” Sabal rolls his eyes, so desperately wanting to jab a fist into the back blindly to whack at him, “this is _important.”_

This insistence stirs the man more, and even Sanani seems to want him to hush up as he watches him shoulder the smaller man roughly in the rearview mirror. It's no use, as Yosh actively makes an effort to be as loud as possible it seems.

_This will be the hard way, then._

With a hard grunt, Sabal swiftly opens the door of the truck, taking care not to make too much noise, and he hauls around the front of the truck to Yosh's backseat door in only a few long strides. He throws the door open, jaw clenched with determination, and reaches in to grasp the startled soldier by his collar. Sanani gawks over his shoulder, mouth agape, still havering like a hound, but there's genuine horror in his eyes now. He _knows._

It's terribly easy to haul such a small man out, especially with his arms bound tightly behind his back. He screams, struggles, _begs_ as best he can through the tightly bunched wads of golden bandana stuffed between his teeth. Flops and flounders at Sabal's feet like a bagged animal, unable to accept death as it stares him in the face with the shining blade of a kukri.

“A shame it had to turn out this way, brother. This is what the gods have to say to men like you,” he whispers as he stoops above the squirming soldier, and in one swift slice Yosh is dispatched in the dirt.

No more begging, no more commotion, just _silence._ As Kyra wills it.

When he stands again, Sanani is stone-faced and embittered in the furthest corner of the backseats as he can get. Keeping his distance, full of distrust. As he rightly should be.

“Any complaints, Sanani?” Sabal challenges as he shakes the fresh blood from his blade, whetting the rest of it against his trousers.

“…no…” the poor fellow actually bothers to respond aloud.

“Now, before I leave you with Dhonu, there is one last thing I hadn’t thought to ask you until now, my friend,” he says, keeping his voice low, “this _Gadyuka_. Would you care to tell me what a white American woman is doing with _Pagan Min?_ Why we have intelligence stating she was with him when my previous Havildar ambushed his jeep near Rajgad Gulag in the North? What she is doing in this country, roaming freely? _Killing Kyrati like you and I?”_

Sanani swallows hard. Tries to kick back further into the door of the truck as best he can. Tries to avoid Sabal's gaze, but can't seem to escape the heat. He looks as though he'd rather choke on his own tongue than answer, and there's not much time left to play these games. His men have pulled around the back perimeter, they're taking point where they've been assigned. It's time.

“Hm. I had thought you would be ready for more questions,” Sabal sighs, “in time, my friend. In time. Dhonu, at the ready.”

Sabal covers the length of the side yard in little time at all and presses himself tight against the wall of De Pleur's manor alongside one of his men, two others flanking the other side of the doorway. Ornate as it is, they have almost beautifully convenient cover behind the molded wood frame of the thing. Like it’s been built for this express purpose, a divine intervention.

Now they wait, patiently, guns at the ready. Like the Golden Path often does, for these opportunities to jump at the throats of the elephants, leaping like tigers to tear down Pagan's blundering, oppressive regime behemoth by behemoth. The gods are patient, and so he will be too.

Any manner of men can walk through this door at any moment. One of whom he's prayed will be the first one out. If all goes well, then this foreign woman will have carried him straight to Pagan Min somehow, almost too easily. _If_ all goes well…

Inside, two sets of footsteps tap down the hallway. Slow, leisurely, in no rush. _Good,_ this sounds promising. He can recognize the muffled voice moving ever closer without a second thought. No-one else in this country sounds like _him._

“…so much to talk about, so much to learn…” Pagan Min says, this much he can make out at the tail end.

He sounds _happy._ Filthy, sickening giddiness in his blasted voice. The doorknob creaks and his men shift uneasily, ready for a brawl. The door opens outward, yawning open on none other than the _Gadyuka,_ he can only assume. Taller up close, taller than him. It’s difficult to see much of her in the dark, save for her wild eyes, like pools of black in that face pale as moonlight. A ghost. A creature of another world. An outlander, from the same far-away country the Son of Mohan had been stolen away to, but so, so _different._

_Wrong._

“I love you, still, you know that,” she says in an accent that sounds so much like De Pleur's, much lower in pitch.

Sabal's gut sinks.

_No, wrong. Filthy whore, laying with the King._

Pagan steps out after her, his hand settled so _lewdly_ on the middle of her back, like she belongs to him. Neither of them have noticed the four _terrorists_ pressed hard against the wall, guns trained on their backs. They simply dawdle on like two lovers in the moonlight, like Pagan's life isn't delicately dangling by his last mortal thread. By the last platinum hair on his-

_“I love you too, Vanya.”_

Sabal snaps the moment the King sighs those five words. Disgust rises through him, hotter than his bloodlust, and before his men can stop him he's shoved off the wall and broken across the lawn. He has the Gadyuka in his grasp before she has time to squeal and she succumbs surprisingly easy to his hold. He presses the barrel of his gun to her temple, digging the cool metal into her flushed skin. She won't die here, not if she cooperates, but the weapon helps negotiations. She's known to be dangerous.

What comes from his lips makes his skin crawl, sounds like someone else is forcing the words out.

“I love you too,” he mocks her, right in her ear, face in those wild snake-like coils of hair, “do not move _little dove.”_

Just as planned, if only a little too late, _as things have been overall this evening,_ Dhonu turns over the engine on the truck. He gets the headlights shining on this _interesting_ turn of events just in time for Sabal to watch the light fade from Pagan's eyes. A saccharine sweet reward to watch him crumble before he's given back to the dirt, reduced to no more than Yosh out by the truck. The Gadyuka squirms, trying to catch her footing as he leads her backwards, makes her watch his men corner the King against De Pleur’s manor. A two for one deal, _beautiful._

They'll have moments to escape into the woods before the inevitable alarm is raised, and Dhonu will meet them at the tunnel to regroup. All according to plan, until some of De Pleur's men thunder down the hall after Pagan and the Gadyuka, likely their escorts. If he says a word, he's as dead as the King, and what good will he be for Kyrat burned at a ghat and left as only a memory? No, it's up to his brothers to act, if they've got the courage. They all should, they've been _waiting_ for this day.

_Just hold your ground men, shoot. Now. This is your destiny._

Four soldiers pad out into the light on full alert, and just before they catch sight of what's unfolding Sabal's men make a break for it, scrambling off into the shadows as Dhonu revs the engine on the truck. Pagan Min withers where he stands, never once looking away from this wretch in his arms.

_Cowards, all of you. One bullet would have laid him in the earth._

“Damnit,” Sabal snarls, causing the Gadyuka to stiffen, “it's your lucky day. We can watch him wither with every step we draw you away. Why are you so special I wonder?”

She says not a word, doesn't even try to shout against his palm. Perhaps she's taken a lesson or two from Sanani in hostage etiquette. How thrilling it is to feel this fearsome woman crumble in his arms, to see her accept her rightful place in this world _beneath him._ Kyra's will reaches far beyond international borders, clearly, and has delivered him a fearsome boon.

“It is Kyra's will that you’re still alive you know,” he purrs, suffering terrible déjà vu, “so long as you prove useful to me, _Gadyuka.”_

-

Banapur is almost vibrating with some sort of harmony the following morning. As though the entire village knows what happened last night. As though Banashur himself is singing on the breeze, echoing down the alleys. Any small victory is a hand-hold on the steep mountain-climb. Even if the news hasn't spread yet, _Banapur knows_. Sabal can feel it in his bones, in the very spring in his step as he pads through the morning market. Bhadra must be with Amita down by the paddocks, learning to shoot that bow he's insisted she go nowhere near. But that is Amita's way, always weaseling up under his skin even as his clear subordinate. Soon enough she'll be gone, when he can find the right man for the job…

In the safehouse, his new Havildar is already waiting with the intelligence reports he’s requested. The file is surprisingly thin, only a few pages long at best, but all the same it's _valuable_ information.

He takes a seat, kicking back and crossing his legs, and flicks through the paperwork. Calm as can be. He has _time,_ now. All the time in the world.

In it, first and foremost, are brief and jilted incident reports of the ambush and subsequent slaughter of his men near Rajgad. Twelve brothers and sisters of the Golden Path wasted, laid out on the road around the burning hull of a Royal Guard jeep, riddled with bullet holes. What interests him about these reports in particular are the recounts of one civilian who witnessed the incident from afar. One civilian who _swore_ left and right that this Gadyuka – _Vanya Rotenberg,_ the file says – took down at least two men herself despite looking entirely unsure of herself. Hearsay dictates that something was shouted between the two about Vanya having never fired a gun before, _and yet… murder. Cold-blooded murder, in the gods' eyes._

Sanani and Yosh's interrogation reports are tucked behind, neatly handwritten by a scribe who must have gone over the tapes dutifully last night - he'll have to thank her later. Nothing in these he doesn’t know about already. It's his damn name all over the report asking the questions anyhow.

The last report in the Gadyuka's file is not a report at all, but a photograph, taken of Varshakot's rear gates along the lakefront. The fortress is rather small in the shot, he has to squint to see the short little drive down to the lake and the little dock in the water. _But there, on the dock,_ is De Pleur cross-legged, comfortable as can be, sat beside Vanya with her feet in the water.

 _“Curious…”_ Sabal raises an eyebrow, “there is no follow-up on this photograph. How did you come to get it? Who took it?”

“One of my men, sir. While you were mustering a party to sack De Pleur's compound, we went to investigate the news of Batsal’s capture. This was taken from where we found his partner's body. Why… what do you see?”

“There, small, but enough for you to make out, who are they?” he points, offering the photograph for the Havildar's perusal.

“Paul De Pleur, sir. And… the Rotenberg woman. Vanya.”

_What a strange name for a strange creature._

_“Yes._ Now why do you suppose they are close like that? Is she not _Pagan's_ whore?”

“Could she be _his?”_

“Speculation at best. Does it really matter? A woman like that doesn’t come into our country for any morally proper reason. The gods do not want her here,” Sabal leans forward in his seat, index finger and thumb twitching nervously, a tic of his.

“So then what will you do?” his Havildar asks, rising from his seat, “you have her here, why not ask her yourself? She will crack eventually.”

_He's right…_

Sabal rises with him, giving a curt nod of appreciation.

“Thank you brother. You have been a tremendous help. I think it’s time we pick her mind a little.”

-

The sun here is hot, beating down on the little shed relentlessly here with no trees to shade it. Dark as it may be inside when he opens the door, it can’t possibly be _cool_ or _comfortable_ in here. Two bodies scuffle in the scratchy hay, away from his long shadow cutting across the length of the floor intrusively. Four bare feet, scraped and muddy, peek into the light where it extends its seeking reaches into the tiny space of their prison. _Good,_ they're both awake.

“Good morning Sanani,” Sabal nods his head, stepping aside to let his Havildar in to haul the man up to his feet.

The prisoner whines and keens, a pathetic excuse for who _was_ a soldier yesterday. A pathetic excuse for one yesterday, anyhow.

_Coward._

But he’s smart to fear, to scramble. He knows what’s coming after last night. The Gadyuka, who sits there defiantly, leaning into the sunlight now and _staring him in the eye,_ does not. She's a stranger in his land, and a stranger to him.

“Good morning Sabal,” she says when he hesitates to move to her, narrowing her eyes.

Her voice is clear and concise. She means to express to him that she isn't afraid, clearly. That she _knows_ him. That much catches him off guard.

“You know me?” Sabal finds himself asking sardonically as he strides into the stuffy hut, squats down to her level, “or are you acting tough, _Vanya?”_

“Of course I know you. Not by face, but certainly by name, you cocky _fuck,”_ she spits, shifting on her backside to get leverage, to scoot closer to him in challenge.

She can't possibly intimidate him. Not like this, not in shackles, muddy in an old chicken coop. At his mercy, caught with her pants down so to speak. Pathetic woman.

 _“Oh?_ What could a foreigner know about a man like me, hm?” he chides, folding his hands together and observing her patiently.

_Curious creature._

“I know you’re a danger to this country. A zealot who thinks he can do what he wants in the eyes of the gods,” she grins, eyes alight with such a fire he wants to pull away from her in the tiny hovel.

_Wretched whore._

“Didn't anyone ever teach you to _bite your tongue,_ little dove?” Sabal snarls as he rises quickly, shoving her back into the dirt, watching her eyes fly wide with shock, “what a filthy mouth you have. I should expect no less from you. You disgust me. _Up. Get her up.”_

Dhonu shoulders in as Sabal dusts himself off, shaking off the itching rage that’s prickled under his skin again, and he turns his back on the Gadyuka as she _snarls_ at them both. Like some feral creature, a rabid badger just begging to be put down, chittering at anything that comes too close. He somehow manages to get her on her feet, probably only because of her restraints, and that in and of itself is rather impressive.

“Excellent work, Dhonu. Thank you. Bring her here, into the light please, I want a good look at this fearsome _Viper,”_ he says, clasping his hands behind his back and reining in his rage again.

Vanya is wrestled out of the coop on her wobbly legs, arms held taut behind her back, and it takes Dhonu _and_ his Havildar to keep her restrained with tight grips at the joints of her elbows. Sanani stays inside where he belongs, already broken, already obedient. She’s a strong woman, broad shoulders and wide hips and just a little bit of comfortable American _fat_ on her bones. From living the life of luxury half a world away. She hasn't been here long enough to know a day without a meal, then. In Pagan's company she never would, but in his she will.

_Selfish cunt. Intruding our lands._

He'll break her. Body and spirit. She'll come to know Kyrat just how she should. _Properly._

Sabal steps up, stares her in the eye. Still holding his hands firmly behind his back to keep himself from throttling the bitch as she glares at him with her wild brown eyes. It's rightly intimidating that he has to tilt his head up to meet her gaze. She’s much taller this way, no longer bent at the knees as he holds her captive from behind with a gun to her head, hauls her away. Nearly half a head taller than him at the least, and she _knows_ it makes him squirm. He can see in her steady gaze that she'd be happy to squash him like a bug beneath her boot, break him in two if given the chance.

_Ugly brute of a woman._

“You look like someone, you know,” he muses after a moment, levering his emotions to a flat nonchalance, “I have seen a face like yours before. You remind me of a man who got away from me not so long ago… who has come back like the plague, and brought you with him.”

Something changes in her face as he pries carefully at her exterior with his words, looking for a crack in her hard shell. Recognition flickers in her eyes and she winces before drawing up, slamming up cautious walls around herself. He hasn’t been meant to see that slip, that falter in her. _Good._ The sun is beating down hot on them, but his men aren't bothered. Sabal isn’t bothered. Vanya, however, licks at her cracked lips and tries to shift her weight in her tight snare, visibly growing uncomfortable despite her hostile exterior. She won’t hold forever.

“Oh, I apologize, was I wrong in assuming you were Paul De Pleur's _pet?”_ Sabal jabs haughtily, and she bristles, “he never begged to come home to you, there in that little cage on the edge of the cliff over there. You see? It's still there. He only wanted poor little Ashley on the other end of that phone, while it _rang and rang,_ and Dhonu _pissed on it._ We would have shot him by sun-up if he had not have escaped.”

 _“Fuck you,”_ she snarls through her teeth, jaw jutting out in defiance, fighting against the two men holding her back _“fuck you_ for what you did to my father, you _selfish fucking-“_

_Father._

_Oh Kyra._

_“Stop,”_ he barks, his voice echoing across the valley in the ensuing silence.

Vanya seethes, keening quietly in pain, halted only by the vice-like pinches applied to her inner arms by his men that withers her _just enough._

“Your. _Father._ _That_ is where I know your face, those features. Governor Harmon's _daughter_ stands before me, spitting in my face, brothers! Defying the gods, defiling our land, murdering men and women as she pleases, _laying_   _with Pagan Min,”_ Sabal almost _laughs_ at her charges, feeling the warm, comforting rush of Kyra’s justice flowing through him, “oh, Vanya. I can't kill you now. But you _will_ be answering for your crimes. I take back what I said. It is best you don't bite your tongue after all, _Gadyuka…”_

-

It takes three men to get her strung up by her wrists in the old house not far from where they've been keeping her. The place is filthy, as is just about every house in Banapur, but _this_ room in _this_ little shack has a single high-top window, all the better for their late morning activities. Sanani sits freely in a chair just in front of her, facing her head-on, and the only light in the room is from that tiny window. It's dusty, cramped, and muggy in here, _absolutely miserable._ Perfect. Sabal sits and watches them both at a nearby table, collecting his composure. It won't do him any good at all to launch into this fired-up.

“You high-on-your-horse fucking, backstabbing, murderous _son of a bitch_   _I swear to fucking Christ I'll-"_  Vanya chitters under her breath, jerking this way and that against the winch that holds her up.

“You speak so poorly of your God, Vanya,” Sanani shudders, “so does De Pleur…”

“Both of you!” Sabal slams his fist on the table, startling only the ex-soldier.

_“Son of a bitch, I'll castrate you with a fucking spoon you half-pint piece of shit.”_

_“ENOUGH!”_

_“Oh Kyra,”_ Sanani whimpers, shaking in his seat.

Sabal stumbles to his feet, nearly losing his temper, but he snaps back quick as a bowstring and steadies himself. If he waits for the feral woman to calm down, she damn well never will.

“This is how our little conversation is going to work, _Gadyuka._ Each of you will be questioned in turn. Simple enough. You will learn the rules of your punishments rather quickly, I think. Our friend here knows how this works, and I think he will be _quite eager_ to help you out, won’t you Sanani?”

“Yes, sir,” he murmurs, blanching, “a-as you say, sir.”

 _“Good,”_ Sabal claps his hands together, “Dhonu, Vanya’s shirt, please.”

 _“What?!”_ she cries, and there goes that tough-as-nails façade of hers, out the window at the merest mention of indecency.

“Oh, what a prude. You spread your legs for Pagan like a whore but you complain about _this,”_ Dhonu grumbles under his breath as he sets his hands on her, ripping at the fabric crudely.

Vanya sucks in a breath, sets her jaw sternly, and closes her eyes to them. Trying to retain some of her decency, clearly, and withhold some of her self-respect. _Pathetic._ She’s not even pretty, once the mud-stained fabric is torn away in pieces. Not well-endowed, not anything to look at. Her breasts are boyish at best, rather small handfuls on such a long woman. Sabal has half expected her to have her nipples pierced or some manner of tritely _American_ body modification hiding under her shirt, wild as she is. No, just _plain._ Admittedly rightly _covered_ in freckles, but, nothing remarkable. _Of course_ this is who Pagan chose.

From the table he’d been seated at, Sabal draws up a long, heavy hose. Tests the weight of it in his hands. Salvaged from a vehicle, probably, and reinforced with wire under the rubber coating. A thing of pain, surely, but it won’t break the skin and that’s what matters most. From here, Vanya can’t see him or the thing he holds, but Sanani can. And _oh_ how his eyes widen, understanding fully well _what this is_ and _where it’s going._

“First question. Sanani, I expect _new_ information out of you when requested. Do _not_ give me the same answers I’ve heard before. I expect better this time,” he pauses to explain, standing conspicuously out of Vanya’s field of view, “What was the name of your fellow soldier, the one who did not survive last night?”

She doesn’t even bother to turn to look at him, _stupid bitch._ Her mistake. She won’t know it’s coming. All the better.

 _“What?”_ he panics, shifting in his seat, writhing in anticipation, “I...you already... his name was Yosh...”

_Idiot. Perfect. Working like a charm already._

“New information, Sanani, I want _new_ information,” Sabal sighs, draws back, and lets the hose crack like a whip across Vanya’s bare back.

Her shriek of surprise pierces the room, causes Sanani to recoil back into his seat and wither like he’s pissed himself. The Gadyuka stiffens at the shoulders against the pain that blossoms up in her, tries to grit herself against it. He can’t see her face but he doesn’t need to. Her distress is written all over her posture, in the way she sags against the winch above her, trying not to falter.

“You hit the wrong fucking person,” she hisses through her teeth, still acting tough.

He’ll break her of that soon enough.

Another pass across her back, _harder_ this time, drawing an angry red line across her shoulder blades. She cries out sharply, this time teetering forward to draw away from the pain.

“Do not speak out of turn, _little dove,”_ Sabal purrs, “part of the rules here. You see Sanani plays this game very well. Be more like him, will you? It hurts less when you behave. Watch what happens when you answer me.”

She draws a shuddering breath, and he waits patiently to see if she dares to say anything. When nothing comes from that wretched mouth of hers for a long moment, he continues, coming around to stand behind Sanani with his hands on his shoulders. The hose hangs loosely in a coil along the man’s heaving belly.

“Do you know the whereabouts of my former Havildar? Abiral?”

Vanya considers his question, and he can see the gears turning behind her eyes. He very nearly gets up to punish her for taking too long when she finally opens her mouth to respond.

“Yes. I killed him, inadvertently,” she ekes out, her voice wavering on the edge of fear, staring hard at his hands.

But he never moves from where he rests against Sanani’s torso. Doesn’t twitch an inch, doesn’t harm the terrified man before him. It takes her longer than it should to register that her fellow prisoner will be spared of punishment when she cooperates, and the jealousy that glowers across her freckled face is so sickeningly sweet to watch as it eats her alive.

“Sanani. How did Vanya kill Abiral?” Sabal asks as he stands up, pacing back to stand behind Vanya.

She sucks in a breath again. She knows how this will end. She’s starting to crack.

“...I don’t know, sir.”

The third blow of the hose leaves a nasty welt right over that red mark from his last strike. A lucky hit, so close to the previous one. Vanya keens, arching into a rigid, trembling poise on her tiptoes in a feeble attempt to somehow escape the pain. When she breathes out again, she hitches out a sobbing sigh. Her hands are trembling. Her face is flushed with a panicked sweat under the caked-on dirt and mud.

“Vanya. Answer Sanani’s question for him,” he says, oh so casually, pacing back yet again in this little circuit of his, “I want as much detail as you can give me, little dove.”

 _“Fuck me,”_ she whimpers, “He survived our return-fire at the ambush site a-and Pagan had him brought to Paul’s compound to be interrogated. The shock-rack... malfunctioned... and his heart probably stopped I don’t know, but he was left on there too long while it just kept going, and he was dead long before we got it back off again...”

 _“Like Dharpan,”_ Sabal growls hotly, eyes narrowing, wanting to grip into Sanani’s shuddering shoulders as he stares Vanya down.

“Who?”

_“Out of turn, Gadyuka.”_

In three strides he’s across the gap, and she’s shying away from him before his hand is even raised. He whips her across the lower back, filling in fresh skin with blossoming bruises, and she _wails,_ mourning her mistake before the hose has even come to rest on the dirty floor.

“Sanani! Tell me. Do you know who Dharpan is?”

“No, sir.”

Another sharp crack, and this time the tail end of the hose does catch her shoulder, cutting a smart little line into her flesh there. Bright red blood bubbles up against her pale skin, gathers at the root of the cut, trickles down in the divot between her shoulder blades.

“Vanya! Tell me, were you here to take up your father’s mantle in his stead? Before he came back? Your timeline puts you at his compound before his re-arrival in Kyrat, actively torturing another human,” Sabal says, his eyes tracing the ruby rivulet as it sinks into the waistband of her trousers and soaks into the sweat-soaked fabric.

The room is sweltering in the midday sun.

“Uh, no, I didn’t even do the torturing, I just told you Pagan did,” she gets out, faltering on her words.

 _"Wrong._  Be more concise in your answers, Vanya,” he snarls, going at her again.

She fails to react quite so severely this time, simply keening pathetically and wobbling on her feet. Sagging against the winch above her. Sweat has started to bead all over her naked torso, dripping down her in little streams, sticking her wild hair to her everywhere it touches her.

“Tell me what you know of the Golden Path members Pagan Min is keeping at Rajgad Gulag,” Sabal presses, tired of playing simple games with her.

She must know more. Clearly, she must, spending so much time with Pagan as she evidently does.

 _“What?_ I don’t know what Rajgad Gulag is, Sabal, only where, vaguely, I swear, please. _Please don’t,”_ she begs, _wretched thing._

Theatrics won’t cut it. He’s past caring about Sanani and their little ritualistic _game._ Vanya is withholding important answers, and _still_ trying hard to do so. He grips the hose tightly in both fists, tempted to lash out as punishment, but the suspense seems to be eating at her far more than another whipping at the moment.

“You’re lying, little dove. Lying will not win you any favors,” he says hotly, “You’ve been with Pagan long enough, do not take me for a fool.”

“I’m not fucking lying you _sadistic shitlord,”_ Vanya laughs, the sound grating at the raw edges of his nerves.

_Ungrateful, murderous, lethal bitch._

He lets the hose fly blindly, twice, thrice, four times before he stops counting, and she _howls_ with rage, coming alive in her restraints with a fury that startles him for how resilient she is. Like a trapped dhole gnawing its own foot off to gain its freedom, she _screams_ , yanks, _bellows_ , and he lights her back up carelessly with welt after welt until his shoulder aches from the force of it. When he lets his arm rest, Vanya’s knees buckle from beneath her and she caves in on herself, hanging limply from her wrist restraints. Her voice is ragged and hoarse, the pale flesh of her back is already blossoming black and blue and angry red, and her shoulders shake with the force of her heavy sobs.

 _“Please, please, I’m sorry,”_ she chokes through her tears, “I’m not lying, _please, oh god please stop, make it stop.”_

“Do you know _anything_ about the man you’re _fucking?”_ Sabal finds himself uttering in disgust, finding no better word for the disgusting act of what she must do with him.

Vanya says nothing, blubbers like a child as she hangs there in defeat, broken and battered. A filthy, godless whore with no morals playing with fire and taking innocent lives without the bat of an eye. Playing god, but begging like a poor woman when given equal treatment.

“You are _pathetic_ , little dove. Disgusting. Foul. Such a strong, sturdy woman wasting her life away murdering, pillaging, _raping our land_. Do you think you are the hero of your story? That you get to walk out of here just fine? That Pagan Min will come and save you, whisk you away to his mountain palace and everything will go back to the way it was before? _Oh, Vanya,”_ he shakes his head mockingly, reaching out and running his fingertips down the watercolor painting of her strong back, feeling her recoil from his touch with a wail, _“Stand up._ Take this like a woman. Be strong for Pagan, little dove.”

She doesn’t move. Doesn’t draw more than a shaking breath, doesn’t lift her head. She continues to hiccup through her tears.

“You may think that the two of you _have_ something together, but make no mistake. The moment he tires of you he will throw you aside, just as he does all his other playthings. Just like he has with Kyrat. An ornament for him. A toy he has grown bored of and left to rot, to starve and wither and _die_ before he does, just like you will too, little dove. Make no mistake,” Sabal leans down to her intimately, measuring every word in her ear, smells the rank sweat of fear on her.

_“Fuck you.”_

White-hot rage boils over in him again as she tries to throw her head back, nearly misses cracking him in the nose, and he staggers away from her, cocking his arm again for another round. He doubles down with force this time, catching her back too often with the tail end of the hose as he lashes out blindly. He finds himself shouting in rage right along with her, the two of them boiling over into furious shrieks and snarls until Vanya’s voice _breaks,_ and even then he can’t stop himself. As she tries to scream but cannot, arching away from the pain with all her feeble might, and he can only see that fire burning her up, burning him up, the whole sweltering room, _fuck them all-_

Dhonu’s hand claps down hard on his shoulder and he drops the hose on the floor, staring wide-eyed at what he’s done.

“That’s enough, I think,” he whispers, “you might kill her.”

Sabal scrubs his hands over his face, nodding in agreement. He’s exhausted, and there’s still so much left to do today. So much left to consider, prayers to be said now that he knows just how _naïve_ this wretch is. How _useful_ she might be once she’s good and broken, if she can be swayed...

“Dhonu, while I get her down, I have a favor to ask of you,” he says, “she must be thirsty. So hot in here, the poor thing is covered in sweat, dripping with it. Get her the cold water.”

“You do not mean...” Dhonu hisses under his breath, looking back and forth between Sabal’s face and the bucket they’ve kept in the corner, _waiting._

 _“Yes,_ I do. Our Gadyuka has had quite enough for one day, I think. She has been quite useful. Only fair to offer her a drink before we let her rest.”

Vanya wavers slightly at the mention of water, perking up. Dhonu trudges across the room dutifully, shoulders hunched, and Sabal makes quick work of levering her bound wrists from the winch. Just as her arms flop limply down in front of her he shoves her backwards into the floor, finding she puts up no fight at all. With her aching back grinding into cold, gritty floor, she’s easy to subdue, her face twisted up in agony as she gapes like a fish out of water.

“Whatareyou-” she croaks as he sits on her torso, hands pinned beneath him so she can’t struggle.

He may be smaller than her, and she may be stronger than him, but she’ll break. _She’ll break_.

Dhonu returns to his side with the bucket of water, sloshing all over the floor. Sabal plunges his hand into the chilled water and withdraws a heavy rag, holding it up for her inspection. Her eyes widen and she _really_ starts to struggle, knowing full well what’s coming, but he gives her no time at all to put up a fight. His Havildar has come and dropped to sit on her legs for extra support, well aware of the risk of her throwing them off. _She’ll break._

The moment the rag is slapped over her face rather unceremoniously, she goes rigid before it’s even begun. Her lungs struggle to compensate, trying to suck in air where there is none, and Dhonu begins pouring the water _slowly_ over her face. The Gadyuka seizes, her hindbrain throwing her straight into panic mode, and for a moment he’s convinced she might truly throw them off despite how weak she is.

He gives her five seconds before he lifts up the cloth, and she sputters and coughs, choking and wheezing like she’s been drowned. _Pathetic._

“Again,” he commands, and she pitches, still some fight left in her.

_“Please!”_

He drops the rag over her face again, and Dhonu pours, slower. Six seconds, this time. They can do this all afternoon. He’s not even sure what breaking point he’s looking for any more, but they haven’t hit it yet.

He can do this all afternoon.

_“Again.”_


	13. Best Laid Plans

Vanya. _Vanya._ Her eyes are so full of terror, sorrow, _love._ She’s staring right into his soul, never looking away, won't look away. And he can't, _won’t,_ not until the mongrels bury bullets in his skull and put him in the ground. It's about damn time, a long time coming. More than two decades dodging bullets, ducking under the guillotine. He's been waiting for this, but what a terribly poetic way to go now, _right_ when he's not ready to, not any more. Right when things have turned around for a change, when someone else has started to _matter_ for a change, there she goes. _Gone,_ withered and buckled with a gun to her head and his filthy hand clapped around her mouth, dragged away into the night.

_This is my fault I know you're scared be strong for me dusha I can't face all my regrets right now I’ve been ready for death a long time-_

But then they’re _all_ gone, scrambling into the shadows, leaving him alive and struggling for air like some sort of sick twisted joke. Taking his life with them anyway, drawing out the pain. Stretching him so thin with every thud of their boots, further into the darkness. The truck tears back off down the road behind them, leaving the yard in pitch blackness and silence. He's off like a shot after them before Paul's men even think to stop him.

Sprinting, ragged and desperate, just trying to keep them in earshot. Losing track of them quickly as they scatter and disperse into the trees.

_Can't stop can't give up on you I'm sorry so sorry I'm coming hold on won't let him hurt you I love you-_

Scratching through the underbrush, branches whipping at his face, lungs burning, mind numb, _can't stop, won't let him hurt you. I'll get you, I'm coming hold on. Hold on, hold on._

_Hold on._

_Hold-_

-

The same, cyclical nightmare, every time Pagan closes his eyes and tries to sleep. A fevered blur of that hour of time, that radical shift in gravity. Of that kilometer he sprinted blindly in pursuit, crashing through trees and down the rocky hillsides towards the tunnel. His security detail had found him scrabbling in the dirt, snarling like a rabid dog, the Golden Path nowhere to be found. _Gone._ And they'd hauled him up here, snapping and lashing out at anyone and everything, and thrown him in his fucking apartments like solitary confinement. Like a God damned inmate in a mental facility, _well-_ … they're not wrong.

He can't bring himself to move. His mattress feels wrong in every way beneath him, the sheets feel horrid on his bare feet and his bare chest, the pillows are improper in every way. A cold wooden floor would feel better than this, cold and dirty but parsed with a soft, supple, _strong_ body cradled up against him in the night, fast asleep on his chest. No pillows beneath his head, causing his neck to ache so terribly in the morning, but _she'd_ wake feeling like a new woman, having his strong shoulder to sleep on, his heartbeat to listen to. The smell of her hair in his nose, the feel of her bare skin under his fingertips, tangled up with him. The bed would feel better with her in it, _where she's supposed to be._

But it’s just Pagan. Catatonic, rigid, aching from head to toe. _Alone._ Breathing through that sage green shirt of hers he’d held onto in his loneliness three weeks ago and come home to find still smelled just like her. Bunched up against his face, hiding him from the daylight, that cloyingly comforting smell of _home_ spearing him through the gut like a hot arrowhead.

It’s Gary who finds him first like this, nervously shuffling in with a glass of ice water and a handful of aspirin. He pries one eye open to watch him come in, the dim light in his room still too bright for his aching eyes to handle. The ice rattling on the glass makes a pleasant sound, but it's too loud right now. Too jarring.

“King Min I am so sorry to intrude, Ajay Ghale sent me to check on you,” Gary murmurs meekly, keeping his voice low, “he is afraid you are still _bitey_ , and he wants you to take these pills, please.”

For all the abuse he's put the poor man through, Gary is resilient. Ever faithful, like a doting dog. The urge to reach up and throttle him for intruding so boldly is _strong,_ but he hasn't the energy to so much as lift his head off the bed or speak a word. Pagan finds himself staring hard at the small man, burning holes into his lapel with his glare. Gary doesn’t waver, clutching the chilly water glass and shuffling the aspirin pills in the palm of his hand.

_Oh for fuck's sake._

_“What?”_ Pagan grates out, his intended snap coming as a feeble warble through the fabric of Vanya’s shirt.

Gary inhales slowly, as if preparing to launch into some sort of concerned tirade.

_“… kingminIamsosorrytointrudebutajayghalesent-"_

“I heard you the first time!” he cries, finding the energy to flop onto his back in frustration, “if I take the damn aspirin will you be complacent?”

“Yes.”

“Leave it on the table then,” Pagan murmurs, losing the will to move again, sinking into himself.

He stares hard at the ceiling, trying to ignore his assistant who stands so obliviously at the foot of the bed, _still_ holding out the medicine and water. After a tense, unnecessarily long moment Gary complies and sets the water glass on the table with a soft _thunk_ , drops the pills in a little pile, but doesn't leave. _No,_ of course not. He resumes his post at the corner of the bed, standing at an awkward angle so he's not facing Pagan directly, not quite imposing now. Or he's just _that_ awkward. Any way he averts his eyes without being able to lull his head, Gary is still there in his peripheral, his tanned face and scruffy hair absolutely an eyesore right here, right now.

But the moment his eyes slide shut in exasperation, Vanya is there. Her brown eyes burning with love, freckled face sheened with the sweat of terror. Pleading for mercy, saying goodbye wordlessly. Fading into shadows. He squeezes his eyes tighter, keening in pain, and there she is, sobbing in the dirt, being… _abused. No, no. No._

_NO._

Pagan sits up, rigid, trembling all over as he tries to slam down walls on those nauseating thoughts, tries to force out the rankling worry and guilt. His fault, all of this. That she’s in Sabal's hands, suffering unimaginable – or rather, _painfully_ imaginable – punishments simply for being caught with the King. For being here in Kyrat at all. Because he _had_ to fucking bring her here just to shove a metaphorical middle finger in Paul Fucking De Pleur's face.

“Gary,” he pleads, finding the gumption to speak up, “…talk to me.”

Gary blinks slowly, calculating his next response. Or he's just so far gone in that airhead of his.

“Okay.”

“No, _no,_ tell me something. Anything. A story, or how your day was yesterday,” Pagan urges, trying to still his shaking hands.

If he can’t sleep, can’t shut his eyes in the silence, he'll fill the quiet with company. And if Gary is his best option, _fuck it._ Ajay will come soon enough to check on him, perhaps in fear that he's eaten the poor man alive.

_Bitey, feh..._

“Uh,” his visitor clears his throat, “well I had a really great day yesterday. Ajay Ghale told me all about America, and Mini Soda, even though he has never been there.”

_“...Minnesota?”_

“Yes, that place where De Pleur is from. And he said they wear cheese hats there, and other places in America too. Not real cheese, but fake cheese. Are they occult? Like that other place? _Eden's Gate?_ Should we fear them, the cheese hat people? I do not know! Ajay says it is tradition there, like you say Christmas is in Eggland. Say, can we have a tree again this year King Min? I can buy you a nice present if you wa-"

_“Gary,”_ Pagan interrupts gently, stopping him before he gets ahead of himself.

Hearing him prattle on and on like this, unbidden and unhinged, should really be irking him more than in is. But, emotionally prone as he is at the moment, Pagan finds himself rather sentimental if nothing else. If not painfully numb and run ragged, just clinging to a voice that isn’t his own in his head. But all the same he can’t wrap his head around the pitching to and fro of his subject matter.

“I am sorry,” his assistant deflates all at once, shoulders sagging with tremendous disappointment.

He can’t help but to cluck his tongue thoughtfully, watching Gary cave in on himself, and _damn_ if he could just open his mouth and say something apologetic. Just for interrupting the poor sod.

_“...Thank you,_ Gary. For all you’ve done for me,” he manages to croak, “this may be the one and only time you hear me say that. Now. Continue, please? Palace presents again this year?”

It’s a strain to get the words out, and by god he tries to sound genial, but it’s _fucking hard._ Like every breath is fire in his lungs and every heartbeat is thick lava sludging through his veins. It just won’t stop.

_Guilty, furious, lonely, loveyou, guilty, revenge, furious, loveyou..._

“Gary wants to buy you a Christmas gift, but he doesn’t wanna get me one, huh?” Ajay’s voice fills the room, clear and soft and chiding.

Pagan nearly doubles over in relief at his appearance, thankful to have more reasonable company. At the least, Ajay is _quiet._ Usually. Glossing over the fact that he _asked_ Gary to chatter away...

“Oh I will get you a tiger if you want one again, Ajay Ghale! A real one this time! Big monster of a thing, would you like that?” Gary brightens up, gesturing grandly in the air to enunciate the outlandish size of Ajay’s future tiger.

“No, no, I’m quite okay with the _stuffed_ ones you keep giving me, thanks,” Ghale backpedals, and Gary concedes with a contented shrug, “thanks for being the guinea pig. Looks like he’s alright. I’ll take it from here.”

_“Guinea pig?”_ Pagan hisses as he watches Gary tromp from the bedroom obliviously, “my boy, you really can be so callous with him. He’s not an imbecile, you know. He’s just... _peculiar._ How long were you listening out there, anyhow? You sneaky little shit.”

Ajay hefts himself up to sit on top of the old trunk at the foot of the bed, right where it irks him most to see him perched, and watches him like a hunter. That patient, thousand-yard stare, observing every minute detail until he’s assessed the situation at large and lined up the right shot. Found his proper kill, or the path down which to flee. He blinks those beautiful eyes slowly, so familiar and yet now so _distant_ from him. Like Ishwari has gone somewhere much further from him, deep inside that aching place in his heart. Her pain is not the strongest any more, her son’s eyes don’t cut him deep any more after nearly a year and a half.

“You sound a lot better already,” Ajay finally says.

“...Long enough to know I’m damn well miserable then, I see. If you’re just going to sit there and watch the shit show, at least bring a larger audience next time.”

_Just keep your eyes open, don’t close them. Don’t think about-_

_“Vanya...”_ Pagan simpers, pressing his palms to his brows reflexively to stamp out the sudden ache rushing to the front of his head.

Ajay simply watches. Judging. Waiting. Biding. Perhaps trying to understand how a man with his wits about him has become such a wriggling fucking mess in the bed, starved and sweaty and practically sobbing. What was it that he’d said once to the very boy himself?

_Men, oh, men only really love you in hindsight. When too much distance has built up._

Such a different way now to see what he’d said then.

“Pagan...” his ward presses, “what _happened?_ I know what I’ve heard from the Guard, the official incident report, but what _happened_ to you? Why do you care if she’s gone? ...outside of the obvious reasons?”

_“Have you told De Pleur?”_ he asks suddenly, eyes widening, recalling what he’d demanded of his men the night before in his frantic urges.

“He hasn’t heard a word. We’ve got him on radio silence as requested, Pagan. _Why?”_

“Imagine what would happen to the South if we let on that his daughter is in the hands of the Golden Path? What that would do to my administration, no less? We’ve only just gotten Paul back to Kyrat by the skin of his teeth. It’s a delicate situation and must be handled as such... oh _fuck me_ , Ajay,” Pagan sighs, exasperated, “I can’t do this, my boy. Not anymore.”

Ajay stands from his perch, on the prowl now. His eyes are narrow, presumptuous, as he circles the bed and comes to stand before him on his side of the mattress. Too close for comfort.

“But shouldn’t he know Vanya is in danger? This is kind of a big deal, Pagan. You’re not telling me something, old man. I know there’s something going on. The official report says you two left Paul’s compound together, alone, not followed directly by a security detail as you should have been when you knew there was rebel activity in the area. Juddha refused to report anything that happened inside except that his manor was _empty_ despite having just been ransacked and the army occupying it all slaughtered on the front lawn. And _you_ were already inside before anyone got there,” Ghale chides, leaning in close, locking eyes with him, “I don’t know what happened last night, and I don’t _like_ what happened last night. We can’t fix this if you can’t get out of your god damned head and tell me what happened.”

“...I _can’t.”_

No, not Ajay. Of all people, he can’t open up these wounds to him. Not when they’re so fresh, not when the boy already bears the pain of his past shame, too. Not when he’s staring right back into Ishwari’s eyes, watching her watching him shrink into himself like a maggot in the dirt, losing himself all over again like he did two decades ago.

“You’re gonna have to,” Ajay pushes, reaching out to set a firm hand on his shoulder.

He tries to shy away, bristling at the touch, but he’s held fast by his strong grip. He hasn’t meant to hurt him, he’s trying to convey this in his touch. Ever-gentle when he’s not fired up and trying to whack him for calling Paul halfway across the world and blackmailing him. As Pagan scans his face, trying to rein in his elevated breathing, he recalls those first few months after Ajay had scrambled up to the palace out of Sabal’s grasp.

For one month, he’d thought he’d lost the boy to the Golden Path for good after the incident at De Pleur’s compound. For thirty-one days – and he’d counted – Ajay had gone off mucking around the South doing the Golden Path’s dirty work. Being Sabal’s little lapdog, crawling around in the shadows and scrubbing through the brush, gunning down his men left and right. And on the thirty-second day, Ajay had picked up his radio and dared to _answer_ one of his late-night drabbling calls. Had begged Pagan, hissing as quietly as he could, to _forgive him._

Just like that, Ajay Ghale had been a welcome guest of the Royal Palace as he should have been all along, no questions asked. Unconditionally forgiven, never blamed for his actions. If Sabal hadn’t wriggled his filthy way up the hill to Paul’s compound with his little plus-one's help, things never would have gone sideways in the first place. And after all, Ajay came back to him. Agreed to do things _the right way._

But for nearly four months Ajay had been flighty as a bird, jumpy as a mouse. Constantly fearful, ever hyper-vigilant with his borrowed kukri under his pillow or at his hip, a pistol on his bedside table. The smallest changes in routine at the palace had sent him skittering, dancing on his feet with the blade in his hand and a wild anxiety in his eyes. Kyrat had broken AJ Gale the uncertain American, Sabal had made sure of that. And with patience and time, Pagan had helped Ajay Ghale the son of Kyrat find his strength and security again.

“Pagan, come on. Snap out of it,” Ajay shakes his shoulder, rattling him out of his deep thoughts.

His freckled nose comes into focus, and a rush of sympathy comes over Pagan like a tidal wave. His chest tightens, aching with the past echoes of all those times he’d reached out to Ajay and watched him tense in panic, in true fear. Shaken and scarred by whatever it was he was dragged through in the South for Sabal’s personal gain. Pagan scoots himself off the edge of the bed urgently and is up on his feet in moments, crushing the man into a tight hug before he knows what’s hit him. Ajay stiffens in surprise but doesn’t fight him, letting him run his trembling hands through his shaggy black hair soothingly.

“Oh, my boy, I’m _so sorry,”_ Pagan sighs, the words falling from his lips of their own accord, “still so sorry.”

“For what?” Ajay mumbles, muffled by his shoulder.

“All that you went through to get here. All your distrust of me, all your lingering fear...”

“Pagan...” his hands press firmly on his chest, pushing away enough to encourage him to let go.

Pagan drops his arms, gritting his teeth, and straightens up awkwardly. He’s gone too far again. All-or-nothing, over-the-top as always, and he’s just _hugged_ Ajay on easily the worst morning he’s had in the last year. The room is quiet, _too_ quiet, and for a moment all he can hear is a dull thrumming that must be his own hammering heartbeat. At least he’s still alive to feel the ache in his chest, that yearning pain that means he’s still helpless and bitter and _utterly fucked._

_Guilty, lonely, anxious, guilty, helpless, lonely..._

Ajay must read something in his face that he himself can’t see, must understand some unspoken twisting of agony in his nauseous gut. His face falls in concern as he looks hard at him, observing again, back to his quiet repose. But then he reaches out, grasping him by the shoulders, and draws _him_ into a tight hug, and _fuck_ if Pagan doesn’t break in two right there in Ghale’s arms like he’s been needing this more than he’d care to admit.

“I think you need this too,” he mutters above him, letting him wilt in his arms for a moment as he tries not to sob, “you’re a fucking mess.”

“I _love her,_ Ajay,” he croaks out, slumping over and resting his forehead against Ajay’s shoulder, “I’m _in_ love with her.”

“You what?” Ajay releases him, lets him fall back onto his ass on the mattress, “Well that’s _sudden.”_

_“Oh,_ I know, my boy,” Pagan scrubs his face with his hands, willing himself to get his head on straight, “but all the same, that’s how things have turned out. And now I’ve gone and blown it all to shit again haven’t I?”

“Were you alone in Paul’s manor because of Vanya? I know she went down there to the fete to confront you,” he asks, “and clearly she didn’t get shoved on the next trip back to America as planned, so...”

_“...yes._ I... was at De Pleur’s compound waiting for Vanya’s return from Varshakot. She wanted to take an educational _field trip_ of sorts with Paul, and, ah, I...”

“Good enough, I get it. You uh. You _spent the night,_ that’s fine. That’s a wild turn of events from what you wanted to happen, but I’m happy for you. Really. Weirded out a little, she’s _my age,_ but if that’s what she’s into then good for you,” Ajay shrugs, “So why did you two leave without a security detail? Paul’s men called in a _Khilana Protocol_ before the Golden Path rounded them up and cut their throats. A direct threat on the compound, specifically. All men on deck. They got there, found _nobody_ inside, mysteriously, despite overwhelming evidence that the place had been ransacked and Royal Army soldiers murdered on the lawn. And you all assumed the rebels had just up and scattered out the back door like you said they did? Left King Min behind, defenseless, not even worried about coming back with backup?”

“But they _didn’t_ come back with backup,” Pagan hisses, ignoring Ajay’s first question, “Three men got me against the wall. Only three. There were twice as many in the manor, if not more, when they were sacking the place. So why did so few linger behind? They weren’t coming for me, not originally, I don’t think.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that Vanya had been down at Varshakot, as I said. And had been with me when we were ambushed near Rajgad, where there may have been reports of her sent back to the Golden Path before the fighting really started. It may have been why the Havildar chose not to close in on us so quickly, they may have been _observing her._ And when she went to the South, she may have been _observed_ there as well, Ajay...”

Ajay’s face softens and he straightens up, _chuckling,_ as though something out of Pagan’s mouth has amused him.

“You didn’t hear what happened then, did you? At Varshakot? What you’re saying makes a lot of sense then. That they’d be hitting De Pleur’s compound as some sort of strategic move to get at her and her dad. Not like they haven’t tried before. It’s just convenient that you were there,” he explains with a wily grin, clapping a hand on his shoulder proudly.

_“Convenient?_ Hardly, my boy. What happened at Varshakot?” Pagan asks warily, eyes narrowing, “did they strike there too?”

“Not at all. _Vanya_ struck. Juddha told me she showed up before Paul, grabbed a fucking _rifle,_ took a leisurely stroll, and ended up killing one rebel and bringing another back bleeding and squealing on her shoulders half-dead, grinning ear-to-ear,” Ajay elaborates, only smiling wider, “what the _fuck_ did Kyrat do to her? Did _you_ do to her? Juddha said she told Paul’s men to call her _Gadyuka._ I looked it up, it’s _viper_ in Russian.”

His _dúshé_... Out there dashing through the brush outside the fortress, taking on adversaries all on her own, fearless and powerful. Owning her title, her _identity_ , living her life, his spitfire woman.

Pagan laughs. Louder than he’s laughed in a _long_ time. Hard, gut-clenching, tear-spilling. He throws his head back, squeezing his eyes shut as he shudders through his fit of hysteria. It just _comes out of him_ , pent-up and distilled into this manic giddiness that doesn’t make any sense at all for how fucked up he’s feeling. Ajay shifts away from him on the bed in concern, and he can only imagine the face he must be making.

When he can finally breathe again, wheezing through the giggles at the tail-end of his little high, he wipes the tears from his eyes and falls back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

“My god, _what a woman,”_ he sighs, aching for the smell of her hair, the crinkle of her nose when she laughs...

But she’s far out of his reach, still his fault. Still suffering, maybe even _dead_ by now if she hasn’t proven useful to the Golden Path. If they can’t extort her for information, surely they’ll stick her in the same cage her father spent days in before his escape. Curled up, baking in the hot sun, far away from home. From _him._

“Pagan, we can help her,” Ajay says, resting his hand on Pagan’s arm encouragingly, “not only that we _can,_ but we _have to._ I’m not about to let her suffer down there, and I’m not going let you give up on her either just because you’re feeling bad for yourself.”

“But what can we do? You take me for a fool, but I’m sure the moment we send a single member of the Guard down there to extract her, she’s dead,” he admits, “I’m _not_ risking her life any more than I already have.”

“So you’re just going to let her sit down there getting raked over by the Golden Path? Terrified, alone, pried for information?”

Ajay is up again, off the bed and standing over him from the _other_ side faster than he can keep up with his frenetic pacing.

“I know Sabal, Pagan. Better than you do. Vanya is an American on foreign soil, first and foremost. He’s going to take her as far into the South as he can. As far out of your reach as he’s able to. And he’s going to manipulate her. It’s the only thing he’s truly good at, getting under your skin. Making you feel like he’s on your side, showing you what you want to see to get your mind changed in _his_ direction,” Ajay explains, holding a steady gaze with him.

Those piercing eyes, like a hawk’s. Instilling a sense of calm, or at least _trying_. Bless the boy for trying, really.

“Where does that leave us then?” he asks, pushing himself upright again with a groan, “how are we going to get to her effectively?”

Ajay moves over to the bedside table where Gary had set his water and aspirin, scooping the pills into his hands. Truly, he’d thought they’d moved past the fucking medicine, but then he’s got the glass in his other hand and he’s back to his side in two strides. _Oh, for fuck’s sake._

“That leaves us with you taking these to nurse your adrenaline hangover, getting yourself showered so you _feel better,_ and coming with me to Banapur to track Sabal,” Ajay chides, holding out his rations with a firm stare.

“Oh, _yes,_ mother,” Pagan rolls his eyes, begrudgingly letting the pills drop into his open palm and swallowing them dry before he can take the offered water, “but why Banapur? Certainly we’re not going _into_ the village?”

“No. We’ll hang around outside town. I know places we’ll be safe from prying eyes. We’ll have to get you a hat and scrub that eyeliner off. Your hair is a dead giveaway, no pun intended,” Ajay snorts, “Banapur is home-base for the Golden Path, as you know well enough. It’s also where they kept De Pleur, as we know, and it’s the furthest thing from our grasp right now if we try to go down there with the Guard. If it’s just the two of us, we’ll stand a better chance at slipping through unnoticed.”

“And we just _watch?”_

“...Were you ever a tactician, Pagan? Don’t answer that. I’m sorry,” Ajay backpedals when he catches the wounded look stirred up on his face, “just. _Listen_. I’d wager if Sabal is keeping Vanya alive for any reason, he’s going to have her out and about. He’s going to try to play on her _American sensibilities_ just like he did with me. He’ll show her the same shit I saw, probably. Poverty, drug fields, the old City of Pain, probably. He’s going to break her like he wanted to break me.”

“Like he _did_ break you, Ajay...” Pagan says, recalling yet again those doe-eyed cries of fear, those middle of the night knives to his throat when the trauma and stress woke him, sent him scrambling down the hallways blindly in fight-or-flight mode.

Ajay wilts, just a bit, and sets the water glass back down on the table.

“Pagan. I just want you to know. You _can’t_ go rushing in there to save her. We need to be patient, bide our time, and learn his routines. It might take time, waiting for that right moment to dive in there and get her. This isn’t the time for sending in the fucking cavalry and shelling the place, okay? You know that, right?” he asks, bending over until he’s eye to eye with him.

Pagan scoffs, rolling his eyes, but his heart tells a different tale. He can be steady if he must, but he’s not necessarily ever been a man of _restraint_ in a situation like this. So easy just to make a single phone call and flatten a couple houses to prove a point. But _Vanya_ may be in one of those houses, crushed under the rubble or peppered with his own bullets...

“Fair enough, my boy, I trust you’ll keep a good tight leash on me,” he pipes up cheerily, squashing down his doubts and fears.

If this feeble little hope is all he has to cling to, he’ll hang on it for all he’s worth. If this chance is all they have to get her back, to save Vanya, then by fuck he’ll do whatever it takes.

“Right. I’ll go get together what we’ll need, you just... get _yourself_ ready. You look like shit,” Ajay reminds him, ducking to avoid the well-aimed pillow Pagan whips his way, and with that he’s

_Coming for you, dusha._


	14. Friends in Strange Places

_“Please, Kyra guide me. I cannot die here alone.”_

Sobbing, incessant fucking sobbing. Simpering, wailing, _pleading_ from the other corner of the cramped little hut that there’s barely enough room in to begin with. He’s always kicking out, squalling like a scared little boy, knocking into Vanya in at all hours just when she’s falling asleep. He’s not alone, he merely thinks he is, so taken by delirium and desperation, hunger and night terrors. With a loud wail Sanani throws himself over onto his back, kicking out his bare feet and scratching at her sore back with his toenails in the dark.

Vanya claps her hands over her ears as she hisses through her teeth, arching away from the sharp pain in her back. This has been her new norm for nearly twenty-four hours of confinement. If their captors don’t kill him, she very well may strangle him herself the next time he wakes her with a solid kick to her wounded back.

She’s raw. Every inch of her back feels like it’s been dragged through hot coals and raked over broken glass. Moving is pain, and pain is exhausting. Sanani’s petulant pleading is exhausting, driving her straight up a wall and out of her god-damn mind, as if she wasn’t already shaken enough. Breathing is agony, her throat is scratchy and hoarse from its own abuse. Her lungs have been wrung ragged from that awful cloth, that steady stream of _ice cold-_

_“Please, anyone!”_

“Sanani!” someone barks from outside the wooden walls of their prison, kicking _hard_ at the structure with their boot, “quiet! Do _not_ make me tell you again or you are good as dead!”

_Yes, shut the fuck up, please, Sanani. Wise man, listen to the rebel outside and stop squirming. There’s barely room for the two of us in here, don’t make it worse than it is, Sanani._

But then... there’s _barely room in here._ She may as well make some, curled up and stiff as she’s been. Vanya stretches her aching legs out across the tiny hut, right into her cohabitator’s personal space, and he _wails_ in despair. Scrambles up onto his ass, fleeing from her muddy bare feet like he’s been bit by a snake, knocks himself elbows-and-shoulders into the wall.

Their sentry outside kicks the wall again, terribly close to Sanani’s head, and the poor man _snaps_. He lets out a keening peal of a cry, burying his face in his hands as if to will away reality.

The door is unlocked in a hurry, and yanked open with urgency. The hot afternoon sun beats down around the silhouette of a seething Golden Path rebel, most likely the one who’d just moments ago told Sanani he’d eat his own words if he so much as cried out again. Sanani’s doom, come to collect him, clad in sun-washed denim and a yellow bandana.

And just like that, he’s gone. Hauled up by his shoulders and dragged away screaming into the daylight. She can hear him as he’s led away, listens as he slowly gives up on struggling. Finally he stops shouting, and she can make out the faintest hitch of a ragged _sob_ before a single rapport of gunfire rings out across the hilltops. The door is still open, she can see birds scattering to the blue sky away from the startling noise. Her freedom is _right there_ , but she _can’t_. Her legs won’t move, won’t kick her from the muck and lift her from the ground.

It’s quiet outside. No more of Sanani’s sobbing, no more birds chattering in the trees. Only the wind and the sounds of town nearby, someone singing a lovely song. Her freedom is _right there, but she can’t._

_She’s too weak, Broken. Tired._

But it’s quiet outside now, and her sentry has returned stony-faced and embittered to close the door and leave her in the darkness once more. He doesn’t even say a word. He doesn’t have to. She’s finally asleep before he even gets the padlock on the door.

-

_Two days_. It’s two fucking days before another soul dares to breathe a word of English to her. Where she’d heard nothing but Sanani’s constant pleading in both his native tongue _and_ English before, now she’s been subjected to nothing but painful, maddening _silence_. A blessing at first, surely, but not after forty-eight hours. Water skins and hardtack have been handed through the door at odd hours, never on routine, and nobody’s said a word to her. She's been left to rot in here, mind numb, back stiff and throbbing, barely having the mental stamina to even miss home, to miss _him_. By the time the door opens wider than usual, she's given up hope of getting out of this a sane woman.

By the time Sabal steps through that wide-open door with the bright sunrise behind him, she's not even sure he's real anymore.

“Up, Vanya. Get up,” he says calmly, standing near her face where she's pressed it into the cool dirt.

Vanya stares hard at his boots, burning holes through the scuffed leather with her glare, but Sabal doesn't budge. One foot lifts, shifting his weight, and before he can kick her she scrambles away reflexively. He snorts through his nose, grinning down at her as she gasps on her back, wrenching away from the pain it brings her to lie flat this way.

“Oh little dove, you think so poorly of me. You think I would kick you when you were down?” he chuckles, resting his hand on a long coil of something on his belt that she can’t quite make out in the dark coop.

The way his bony fingers dance over the length of whatever it is sends chills down her spine in anticipation. Like he's _reverent_ , possessive of it. Sabal steps back into the outside world to give her room to rise, still toying with his new _accessory_ , and as he's washed in the golden glow of the early morning sunlight she _sees it_. Understands it. _Feels it,_ burning into her back and shoulders, still fresh. The _hose_ , that draconian coil of braided wire and rubber. Sabal ducks his head down until she meets his eye, and draws a wry little smirk that pulls her gut into agonizing knots.

That hose under his fingertips, sitting so still but so blatantly present before her, pulls her right off the ground and onto her wobbly legs. Stiffens her into rapt attention, breathing rapidly like a caged animal. The little piece of her still left inside who understands any sort of sanity weeps for how shameful she is, muddy and trembling and practically _pissing herself_ over that two-foot length of hose. This is what Sabal wants, and she can't even find the strength to deny him this satisfaction.

“What do you want?” Vanya hisses, eyes wide, watching warily.

“I think you have been in the dark – literally and metaphorically – for long enough,” he says simply, letting go of the hose and crossing his arms, “we have a long drive ahead of us, and some important things to see.”

_“Really?”_ she raises an eyebrow, “…you're taking me on an _adventure?_ Or out to pasture?”

Sabal's face falls flat and his fingers twitch eagerly where they rest on his arms. The confusion on his face is clear, but she can see he won't admit he doesn’t understand her turn of phrase.

“It means _euthanize me_ , numb nuts,” Vanya mutters under her breath.

_“Out, kutiya,”_ he snaps, prickling in response to her defiance, “come out of there. You have the mercy of walking out of there on your own two feet without restraints if you come quietly, but make no mistake, you _will_ come with me one way or another.”

The two of them stare long and hard at one another, and she’s sure she'll lose, especially when she notes two more Golden Path rebels – ladies, this time – padding across the field with rifles slung across their backs. Vanya holds out until Sabal hears their footsteps and turns back to glance at them, just long enough to assert that she's _not_ done resisting him. Before he can turn his head again she's shuffled from the muddy coop and into the outside world, curling her toes into the scratchy grass.

One of the rebels drops a shoddy pair of ramshackle sandals at her feet, just barely large enough to fit her. It’s a miracle they do at all, but they're _something_ at least. Probably sized to her own boots, wherever they’ve been confiscated to. She’s offered no change of clothes, though, and so she'll go wherever they're headed in her muddy, whip-stitched tee and denims, then. Filthy, unwashed, looking like scum of the earth. She smells like hell, her hair is a rat’s nest of fairy locks and tangles.

This must be a walk of shame, then. He'll let the world see her, let _her father's men_ see her, and word will get back to Pagan. She's a trophy, then. The only reason she's still alive. To parade her around Kyrat like a prized kill after a big game hunt, rubbing salt in the King's wounds. And maybe, _fucking maybe…_

_Pagan won't care._

This thought shakes her to her very core as she follows Sabal and his escorts to a vehicle waiting nearby, engine idling. There's that right-hand man of Sabal’s, Dhonu, sitting in the driver's seat. She can’t choke back the fear that maybe, just _maybe_ , nobody has come for her yet because Pagan doesn't give a damn. Because maybe he’s never _going to_. It was always a mistake to bring her here, and now that she's out of his hair he's good as gold. She's going to go on this little excursion, hold her head high and behave herself like a _good_ fucking _prisoner_ , and… _wait._ And perhaps wait some more. For days, maybe. Weeks, even.

Vanya Rotenberg, _ward_ of the fucking _Golden Path_. Plaything…

It should take both women to shove her into the back of the truck, but she climbs in willingly, certainly not looking to earn any more lumps or bruises. One of their two escorts climbs into the front seat, and Sabal slides so easily into the back. Vanya gets the uneasy feeling that this isn't something he normally _does._ That perhaps he's in the back with her for some ulterior reason, trying to skeeve her. But, aside from a single glance sidelong in her direction, he makes no indication of acknowledgment. Like she doesn’t even exist.

Something about his indifference rankles her. It bothers her enough to bubble right up past her wariness, and she brings herself to lean across the seats and invade his personal space.

“Where are we going?” She asks, loud and clear, and _damn_ it feels good to watch him startle a little, his fingers stiffening over his knees.

This close, she can _smell him_. Not that she can’t from far away, when he just smells like cigarettes and dirt and sweat. Like the old run-down truck stops miles out into the midwest she used to stop at with the Harmons and her mother on family trips. But with her face so close to his shoulder as he's leaning towards the window, she can smell his sun-baked skin, the faint waft of woody incense, the smell of _him_. It’s too much at once.

_“Tirtha,”_ Sabal hisses sharply through his teeth, rolling his r and spitting his t’s.

_Good. He's irked._

But this information doesn’t sit well. Maybe she _is_ being taken to slaughter. How convenient that she's headed back towards De Pleur's fortress now that Sabal knows he's her father. All too convenient. All the same, it's too late now. She’s in the God damn truck, isn't she?

“Why? What's in Tirtha? What's so important there?” Vanya asks, lingering close to him, trying to sway into his peripheral to grab his attention, “that's _awful_ close to Varshakot. I heard about it, saw it on his map. Yeah, I see your face. Surprised I know _some_ shit, huh? Just not what you want to hear from me.”

His shoulders stiffen, his fists clench. He inhales slowly through his nose, out through his mouth. All it takes is one twitch of his left hand towards his belt and she's back into her corner, far away from him as she can get. She's poked him a little too hard.

“Little dove,” Sabal says, hovering over the hose for long enough to prove his point, “keep your _fucking_ distance.”

When that left hand comes to rest on the edge of the open window again, his head still turned out to watch the countryside blow by, Vanya releases her held breath. Safe for now, if she can just keep hold of herself and that little burning sun. _She'll behave._

-

Tirtha is... _much_ less exciting than she’s anticipated. _To say the least._ _If_ she could even say that she’s _excited_ to be here. From what little she’d heard about the place from Paul, she’d expected it to be somewhat small, a _work in progress_ according to him. Not _this small._ Not... _not this._ All of maybe eight or nine small buildings clustered together behind crumbling walls, some in better shape structurally than others. If anything, Tirtha looks just about as awful as the brief glimpses of Banapur she was able to afford on her short excursions out of her tiny coop.

Being this close to it all, however, led in surrounded by four uniformed Golden Path members, changes things dramatically. It’s far enough into the day that villagers are out and about, seeming like they’re getting up to their daily goings-on. But upon closer inspection it appears that nobody’s doing much of anything at all. In fact, most of the Kyrati who seem to be avoiding the five of them like the plague seem to be doing anything _but_  something. The most offensive thing about the place by far has to be the smell, though. Rotting garbage sitting open in the streets, dirty unwashed bodies, _raw sewage_ in potent wafts from sources she doesn’t want to begin to look for...

“Welcome to Tirtha, Vanya,” Sabal says, close behind her, and Vanya bristles in surprise, “a village raised to _ideal Kyrati standards_ by Pagan Min and the _venerable_ Paul De Pleur.”

_Ideal?_

There, in the middle of the street, is an older man spread-legged in the dirt, propped up against the wall of a building, _piss-drunk_. It’s the middle of the fucking day and he’s visibly sloshed, clutching at a half-empty bottle of Shangri-lager she can almost taste from here. Shitty beer, poor life decisions. Her first reaction is to outright deny what she’s seeing around her, to push it all away and stuff it down into that recycle bin of hers for later processing.

But it’s all right here, plain as day. Sabal sees her distress, too, and the grin on his scarred face says it all without any explanation needed.

Pagan himself had admitted to knowing what was happening outside the palace walls. Back in that ill-fated jeep, when she’d watched the rotting cottages roll by and he’d so candidly confirmed her fears. Of course he would know, he’s the fucking _King_. Recluse or not, he’s not a daft man either way. He’s well aware of what’s happening in his country. And apparently, he’s a fan of propaganda, if what Sabal has said holds any merit.

“Why are we here, then?” Vanya asks, trying to keep her eyes moving, trying to soak it all in, “Why bother to show me this? I already know what state the country is in.”

“Because you deserve to see both sides of the coin before it lands, little dove,” Sabal answers, leading her through to the center square of the little village, “and because I want you to truly understand just what kind of man Pagan is. Maybe I’m an optimist, but I hope perhaps you will come to see the _right_ side of things. That Kyrat needs change.”

The way he holds his head high as he lets her walk past him, his long nose in the air with such haughty pride... it tears right through her like a knife. In a way, Sabal is, regrettably, _right_. She can’t even reasonably deny when she looks around that he’s let his people down tremendously. And maybe she doesn’t understand Pagan’s side of things, but... now she won’t have that chance. But...

“Kyrat needs poverty as much as it needs _raids on homesteads_ and _ritual sacrifices_ , don’t you think, Sabal?” she finds herself snarling, that little sun of hers burning right over the rest of her, right out of her in a righteous blaze, “Both sides of the coin and-”

She sees the black blur before she feels it, white hot, burning across her shoulder blades. Sabal snapped so quickly she hadn’t had a moment to react. Vanya’s voice breaks off in a cracked keen as she stiffens, knees locking, eyes watering from the sting. Right over those still-aching, still-agonizing wounds from days ago. Bruising right over old ones.

_Too far. Way, way too fucking far._

Calm as can be, Sabal steps in front of her again and tucks the hose right back in his belt loop.

When she’s lucid enough to focus again, the village square is mostly empty. Nobody’s bothered to stay and show their sympathy save for two scraggly looking fellows picking over a cart of meager groceries nearby. Both of them are staring, eyes wide, like deer in the headlights. Right at her, _right_ into her eyes. As soon as they realize she’s noticed, they both look away rather quickly and busy themselves rummaging through the small assortment of sundries again.

_Stuff it down. Tuck it away. Forget about the Hurt. You’re Fine Vanya. Be Strong._

“This is where you will be eating today,” Sabal says casually, clasping his hands behind his back and beckoning her forward with a nod of his head.

_Fuck her,_ she follows. The other three rebels don’t have to prod her. They don’t even have to come _close_ to her. Vanya shuffles along like a good girl, sucking down ragged gulps of air as best she can to ease the pain however she’s able. Calm outside, stress inside, and Sabal will never see her break again. Nobody _will._

Inside the tiny hovel at the edge of town that seems to serve as a general store, a stout woman leans against the counter with one hand as she clutches her back with the other. She pays Sabal no mind at all, but the moment she lays eyes on Vanya she straightens up stiffly and grimaces, brows furrowing in concern. Vanya watches her lean over the counter towards Sabal and Dhonu who’s shouldered past her, and the three of them have a hushed conversation in their native tongue that only lasts for a few moments before the shopkeep straightens up again and puts on her best smile. Missing, yellowed teeth and all.

“This is Kopisha, Vanya,” Sabal says, “and she would like to offer you some of her homemade _anarsa_ for free as a guest of Tirtha for the day.”

Kopisha brushes some of her graying hair from her face obliviously as though she hasn’t understood a word Sabal has said, which very well may be true. All the same, why the _sudden act of kindness?_ Twenty seconds ago, a _public whipping_. Now, this stranger behind the counter is turning her back to gather up a single handful of some gray-brown dough balls which she turns to extend quite cheerfully to her.

“I... uh,” Vanya clears her throat uncomfortably, “I don’t feel right taking this for free.”

“Well, do you have _money?”_ Sabal snorts, and the sardonic bite to his voice is painfully harsh, “I seem to recall confiscating everything from your person when we captured you.”

Kopisha’s hands remain extended, full and laden with this nondescript seed-covered bread-balls, and she shakes them once insistently.

“A gift,” she insists, and it’s this proud utterance that has Vanya bending and taking the food from her.

It’s not a particularly appetizing lunch, but it’s _far_ better than whatever bullshit they’ve been passing her back at her little prison cell. She’s still got whiplash from Sabal’s sudden change of heart, but then she figures he must just be putting on a show. This is _all_ for show. He seems to be terribly good at weaseling under her skin one way or another. He hasn’t failed yet.

“Thank her,” Sabal reminds her, his eyes narrowing.

“I. Uh. _Thank you_ , ma'am,” Vanya utters, her attempts at sounding cheery falling shamefully flat.

Dhonu sweeps up right beside her as she moves to accommodate the handfuls of sweets she’s clutching and he plucks one of the small loaves right off the top of the pile. She's flustered all over again as he pops it in his mouth, peering up at her with a challenge in his eye. He takes three more before she can protest, her mouth agape, and tosses one to each of his fellow rebels, Sabal last of all.

“Thank you brother,” Sabal chuckles through a mouthful of his _anarsa_ , and oh how she wants to slap that bite right out of his mouth, “now come on, we have more of Tirtha to see, Vanya.”

Staring down at her hands still held aloft, she has _one left._ Once an impressive bounty, now she has a poor excuse for a lunch. Certainly not enough, especially not for her. Starving and shaky as she is. As they lead her out of the little shop she dares to try a bite, finding the dough to be quite disappointing at best. It smells better than it tastes, and she realizes halfway through the thing that it's not Kopisha's fault. She's clearly made the best of what she has, really… but Kyrat doesn't seem to have much in the way of fresh ingredients. These _anarsa_ are fresh. They feel fresh, look fresh as far as carbs go. But they taste horribly stale. A poor woman’s finest sweets, her proudest desserts… and they taste of the sadness this whole fucking country is trying to ignore.

_God damnit, Pagan… what have you been doing up there in the palace?!_

Vanya doesn't make it five steps towards the village square, finding those two fellows from before _still_ gawking at her where they were before, before Sabal grabs her sharply by the elbow and pivots her away and down an alley.

Her immediate response is to gasp out in surprise, louder than she's meant to, and then she stuffs down that fear response right quick. Better to avoid agitating him. She'll go quietly wherever that fucking hose goes…

“This way, _little dove,”_ he growls up at her, sounding so suddenly _irritated_ beyond belief as he hauls her along without pause.

Before she can even think to ask _why_ they’ve suddenly, _urgently_ diverted, she recognizes that they’re separating from Dhonu and the others. Putting space between everyone and everything and heading into isolation down a shady alleyway that smells to high hell like dead animal and human shit.

_ This is it then.  Separate her, get her alone, and axe her… _

It surprises her how numb she is to the thought that she may just be getting hauled off to her unfortunate end.

_“Oi._ Sabal, mate, long time no see!” someone calls out behind them down the alley, and Sabal falters in his stride.

_Oh, sweet mercy._

“Ignore them,” Sabal grunts, and when she turns to look down at him there's genuine worry in his eye.

Just a little, only slightly, but it's there beside the frustration he's displaying. Testing, Vanya yanks back on her arm just a little, and her elbow slips free with no resistance. Sabal stumbles, stops dead in his tracks, but before he can reach for the hose at his belt they're interrupted by the appearance of the two white fellows from the village square. Somehow, inexplicably, _in front of them_.

“For fuck's sake,” she hears Sabal snarl under his breath as he tenses up, rolling his shoulders, and he extends his hand to meet the shake of the shorter man who's taken lead of his partner.

_So much for ignoring them._

They don't look menacing. In fact, they're both grinning ear to ear as though they've just dug up buried treasure right here in this rancid alley. Sabal’s concern seems highly misplaced, but then _much_ of what he does seems highly misplaced. He's a misguided man and a giant wet fucking blanket over anything good in life.

_“Yogi,”_ Sabal mutters curtly as he shakes the shorter man's hand, and he completely avoids touching the taller fellow, “Reggie…”

“Been months, friend! You been hidin' out further west eh? How's come you never visit the Homestead?” the shorter one – Yogi, apparently – chitters.

His voice is so _pleasantly_ British. If it were any more posh, any less _London_ , her heart might ache a little more. Might twinge at the thought that it reminds her so much of someone else's voice, smooth and tenor and _his and-_

The other one, _Reggie_ , is staring right up at her over Sabal's head. Rather, not so much staring as locking eyes with her _intently._ Eyebrow cocked, eyes wide, trying to convey something she thinks might be… _sympathy?_  A question?

“I have things to do, clearly. Like, you know, help this fucking country off its knees,” Sabal grumbles, and Reggie's eyes flick away from her to glower at him for just a moment.

“Oh yes, yes, of course, _Mister Tough Golden Path…”_ Reggie elbows him, and Yogi giggles at this as he potters around them towards her.

Her breath picks up, hitching in her throat in anticipation, but Sabal lets him approach begrudgingly, scuffing his boots in the dirt. This all feels like one big waste of time, especially when _fresh, open air_ is right around the corner.

“Who's this then? Nice to meet you!” he chirps, tipping his head up to her and giving her a steady once-over, “yer awful quiet love!”

Indeed, she has been. What's there to say when she’s just being hauled around, _shown_ things that make her chest and her head ache, and dragged down shady alleys to meet strange British men who smell _terribly_ of opium smoke up-close?

“Well come on, out with it, what's your girlfriend’s name Sabal?” Reggie jabs Sabal again, and he takes personal offense to this.

_“Vanya,”_ she pipes up before Sabal can bark out whatever it is he's started to open his mouth to say, “very much _not_ his girlfriend.”

“Vanya Very Much Not His Girlfriend,” Yogi repeats slowly, his face screwing up in consternation, beady eyes squinting hard, “strange name. Americans are strange, ey Reg?”

“I'll say. Well! A pleasure!” Reggie agrees, and his eyes are burning into hers again as he extends his hand to hers for a shake, “A friend of Sabal's is a friend of ours!”

There in his hand, glinting in a thin shaft of sunlight, held at such an angle that Sabal can't see from where he’s standing, is a long metal _tube._ A plunger at the end, like a _syringe._ Reggie must see her eyes focused in on his hand, her own hand hesitantly wavering near his, and so he shoots out and shakes firmly, locking eyes with her again and _squeezing_ the warm metal thing into her palm. Her face knits up in confusion, trying to ask him anything she can with just a look, but as he grins jovially he shakes his head as if to say _no. Don't say a word._

“Nice to meet you,” Vanya says, clearing her throat and shooting a pleasing glance at Yogi for further explanation.

Their handshake is going to get terribly suspicious soon if she doesn’t let go, and when she _does_ , Sabal is going to notice that shiny metal cylinder regardless of how long they’ve been grasping hands. He's been watching her like a hawk. More so now that these friends of his are buzzing about their business.

_“Bollocks!_ Oh, fuck me would you look at the time, Reg!” Yogi yelps, loud enough for his nasally voice to echo sharply down the alley and scatter the birds on the nearby rooftops.

She sees Sabal's shoulders tense in surprise, and his attention jerks to Yogi's scrawny visage as he prances back in his direction.

_Fuck, these two are strange._

But she sees her opening, and takes it without preamble. Vanya releases Reggie's hand quickly and in one swift fumble, she's got her new little _secret_ tucked in the smallest pocket of her pants. Reggie nods subtly in approval, his mouth hardlining for a moment, and her chest tightens up with inexplicable anxiety.

What _is_ this?

“A chance,” he says softly, as if answering what she’s thinking deliriously, and in the next moment he's spun around and facing Sabal.

Her mind is whirling. She watches the two of them prattle on at her captor as though they haven't just slipped her what she thinks might be a fucking syringe – she can’t bring attention to herself by checking right now. As quick as the two of them swooped into her afternoon, they're gone, wobbling down the alleyway jabbering on to each other and lighting up a _ripe_ smelling joint of marijuana. She hadn't even registered what they said to Sabal in parting, or what he’d bitched back at them, but he looks as shaken as she does.

_“Well_ that was-"

_“Bhadra,”_ Sabal interrupts, and in his eyes she can see a sudden loneliness that rattles her.

Like he’s aching to be somewhere he’s not. Far away from here, clearly.

“What?”

-

As it turns out, Bhadra is not a place, but a _girl._ A girl who lives at a lakeside religious site she’s told is called a _ghat._ Vanya can smell the sickly sweet smoke long before they pull up outside the gates. That smell of roasting flesh and burning wood. Something like a barbecue, in a strange way, an irksome reminder of America out of left field that takes her by surprise. They leave Dhonu and the others behind in the truck, and Sabal leads her off at a quick, long stride across the property towards a great stone alcove carved into the hillside. She can see someone waiting against the rock wall in the shadows beneath it, but her attention is drawn to the shoreline where a great pyre is smoldering. There’s not a soul around, and barely any wood left burning on the fire, and she wonders why they’ve gone to the trouble of making such a large fire here, in this specific place.

She has no time to ponder any longer as Sabal calls her name across the grounds, and she snaps to attention. He’s standing in a dim but warmly lit doorway she hadn’t first noticed in the face of the rock wall, holding the door open to her. Even from a distance she can see the more _vacant_ expression on his face. Like he’s already forgotten he’s supposed to be keeping a close eye on her. Still, she follows obediently like a dog to his side. Afraid of the repercussions. Afraid of the hose. Beside him in the doorway stands a young girl who can’t be any older than fourteen or fifteen. She wrings her hands together uncomfortably, eyeing Vanya up with a wary curiosity.

“Vanya,” Sabal says again as she closes the last few feet of distance between them, stepping into the shade beneath the great stone ceiling, “come inside, please. Be respectful of the dead, even when there are no mourners.”

_“...dead?”_ she asks, eyes widening as she turns back to look over her shoulder at that great big pile of smoldering logs.

“People burn their loved ones here,” the young girl says, sounding so much older than she should with those innocent eyes.

“I’ve... I’m sorry, wow,” is all Vanya can get out, shuddering, and all she can do is turn back to stare down at the young one at Sabal’s side.

“This is Bhadra, Vanya,” is all he says, reaching out to rest a hand on the girl’s shoulder protectively.

The way in which he does so is decidedly _not_ a very fatherly way, and the way in which Bhadra visibly bristles in response has all of Vanya’s hairs standing on end.

_No, no, something’s wrong there. Don’t like that._

“Nice to meet you,” Bhadra nods, averting her eyes, and she shrugs her shoulders just slightly against the heavy weight of Sabal’s big hand.

_“Alright,_ let’s get inside,” Vanya growls, tensing up with a bitterness she can taste on her teeth, and before she can help herself she’s shouldering past Sabal and into the one-room dwelling.

Poor Bhadra stumbles in behind her, surprised by her forwardness, and when Sabal shuts the door behind him and makes a beeline straight for her, Vanya intervenes. She’s on autopilot now, acting on that intuition that comes from nine fucking years of nannying her half sister. Her hands are on Bhadra’s slender shoulders, gently guiding the girl towards the small crackling fire she sees in a hearth across the room.

“Why don’t we make some tea?” she finds herself asking, leaning down close to Bhadra so she doesn’t have to raise her voice, “do you have tea?”

“What are you doing?” Sabal grumbles as he kicks off his boots near the door, crossing his arms and watching her propel the girl towards the fireplace.

He sounds wounded, being separated from Bhadra, and- _no, no, stuff that down. Fucking no._

The moment their backs are turned to Sabal at the doorway and they’re facing the fireplace together, Bhadra sinks back against Vanya, into her hands. Her heart tweaks, aching for this girl she doesn’t even know and yet somehow _understands_ in some preternatural way. One fucking misguided altercation at the doorway and she’s on high motherly alert, it seems.

Kids have always been her weakness. Even Ashley, spoiled, _perfect_ , little Ashley Harmon, Paul’s Best Girl, could do no wrong, not ever. Her kryptonite – _children._

“I brought you here so you could meet the Tarun Matara for yourself and see just how much better off Kyrat will be when Pagan is dethroned,” Sabal says simply as she hears him pull out a wooden chair at a nearby table and seat himself.

_...dethroned... murdered._

Bhadra lifts off of Vanya’s stomach, turning her head up to look at her with an expression on her face that says the opposite of what Sabal is preaching behind them.

“Tea is right here on the mantle,” she says, her eyes lingering a little too long on her face before turning and reaching up to grab the canister of loose-leaf from its home.

There’s an old ghost in Bhadra’s eyes. A lingering ache that’s far too old for the girl. Her soul is weary, tired, _ancient,_ even. And she doesn’t understand. She hears Sabal rifle in his coat for something, and after a moment the dim room flickers with the flash of a lighter for a moment as he ignites the end of a Kyrati Royal and takes a few short puffs.

Bhadra stuffs the canister of tea into her hands and stays close by her side.

She’ll take a fucking bullet for this girl. No matter the cost. Jesus Christ, she wants to _understand._

“The Tarun Matara is a living incarnation of a goddess, you see. Bhadra was chosen to be the next Tarun Matara at the age of 6 years old, and she has been an inspiration to the people of Kyrat since,” Sabal says, and the utter pride in his voice is sickening, almost.

“I just paint silly _thangkas_ and try to learn how to shoot bows from Amita,” Bhadra says, “I don’t know if I want to-”

“Of _course_ you do, Bhadra,” Sabal speaks over her, and his voice commands the room.

_Both_ of them sink down, hunkering over the kettle on the fire. She knows why _she_ is cowering from his voice, but to see this teenager flinching too sends _all_ the wrong kinds of messages right up her spine like a painful jolt of adrenaline.

_What the_ fuck _is his deal?_

Together the two of them manage to get the kettle over the fire and filled from a water skin, and Bhadra closes her hands around the tea cannister that’s still in Vanya’s hands. Her tan little hands are trembling, just _slightly,_ and she keeps trying to look past her in Sabal’s direction. Watching, waiting, wary. She doesn’t look scared so much as _tired._ Like she’s been putting up with him for far too long, and even though she’s only been around him for the past handful of days, she can see why. If Bhadra has known Sabal for any length of time like he’s said, she has nothing but pity for the poor girl. What a man. Or, what a sorry _excuse for one._

“You know, Vanya, once religion is _legal_ again, it will open up so many _beautiful_ avenues for tradition. Kyrat has always been a place rooted and steeped in it,” Sabal muses, “as the Tarun Matara’s husband I can help her guide her people back into the Old Ways. Pagan will never understand what tradition means to Kyrat. What _religion_ means to Kyrat. What _Bhadra_ means to Kyrat.”

_...husband._

_Oh._

_No._

_No, no._

All at once, every fiber of Vanya’s being withers and comes alive, all at the same time. Like she’s dying and being reborn in flame, trying to wrap herself around this tidbit of information her captor has so casually laid out like it’s nothing at all. Before she can stop herself she’s standing fully in the way of Bhadra, blocking her from Sabal’s view, and she can only gawk at him as he exhales a great plume of smoke through his nose.

_“...Husband,”_ she spits, admittedly ashamed of how numb she feels where there should be more rage built up, “she’s a child.”

“Bhadra is fifteen. Plenty old enough, Vanya. You Americans _shit_ on our culture, you know nothing of our traditions,” he shrugs plainly, thinking nothing of her incredulity.

“You’re how old?! Forty?”

Bhadra grasps the back of her grimy shirt, tugging on it firmly, and just as Sabal moves to retort Vanya turns away from him, paling as she meets Bhadra’s old soul in her eyes.

“Please, help me finish the tea?” she pleads, brows furrowing, and her eyes silently add _don’t push him._

_“You’re okay with this?”_ Vanya hisses under her breath as she stumbles towards the mantle, fumbling to pop open the kettle lid with the canister still held in one hand.

She’s sure Sabal can hear them both. The room is small, and painfully quiet. She can hear him breathing quietly through his nose as he stares holes into their backs.

_“I... tea, please,”_ Bhadra presses, reaching for the canister herself and gently prying it from Vanya’s white-knuckle grip, “he hasn’t hurt me. Not yet. Please.”

This last slip of information she nearly mouths breathlessly for how silent she whispers it to her, trying in earnest to keep this between the two of them exclusively.

“No time for tea, Bhadra,” Sabal’s voice is _close_ , and when Vanya straightens up away from the fire and Bhadra’s eye level, he’s _right there_ beside them, jaw clenched, “time to go, nightfall is coming. Thank you, as always, for your hospitality.”

Vanya shakes her head rapidly to clear away the fucking _whiplash_ for the umpteenth time today, and just like that Sabal’s hand is closing on her elbow again and prying her away from Bhadra’s side. They’ve only just gotten here, and he was certainly eager to get _here_ , and now they’re striking off again. _Jesus Christ._

“I’m sorry!” she pleads, cowering to him, and this time he thinks better of his current hold on her.

Elbow released, he goes for the better option, apparently, of giving her a hard _shove_ on her back towards the door.

“Time is up, _little dove,_ tomorrow is a busy day. Off we go,” he grins as she keens, arching back against the searing ache of his abuse.

She’s able to get one last look back at Bhadra through pain-blurred eyes before Sabal gets her back out the door and into the blinding daylight. She’s just _standing there,_ clutching at the hem of her safety-pinned jacket, gnawing at her already chapped lower lip with guilt written all over her face. Just before the door swings back to close on them, Bhadra lifts her hand in a tiny wave goodbye, and then she’s out of sight, shuttered in her tiny little house in the big, solemn ghat.

And Vanya, _fucking Vanya_ , just lets herself go. Lets Sabal shove her along how he sees fit, and stuffs all these aching, _screaming_ , pleading _raw_ emotions down into her recycle bin for later so she can make it out of this fucking day with her sanity intact. If it was to begin with.

It’s poor Bhadra’s name she thinks about on the whole drive back to Banapur, flip-flopping in her head like a fish out of water, gawping for a breath just to survive.

It’s poor Bhadra’s name stuck in the back of her mind as she’s led back to her little coop and shoved in furiously by a still-seething Sabal.

It’s poor Bhadra’s name she’ll carry with her, even if she can’t get back to the _real_ Bhadra again.

_Sabal, you’ll fucking pay._


	15. Propaganda Center

_God-children are no match for a good rifle._

Pagan. So clearly, unmistakably Pagan. Sabal leans back from the front seat of the truck, outdated cell phone in hand, media player app open for her perusal. Vanya presses play again, listening to the recording of a radio transmission they’d picked up from someone else’s comm set.

_God-children... a rifle..._

It’s Pagan Min. Every posh lilt in that honey-sweet voice of his, stabbing right into her gut like claws tearing at her. Almost a week since she last heard his voice. The last words from his lips were _love you_. These words... they can’t possibly be _him_. Can’t possibly reflect how he feels about someone like _Bhadra_ , unwilling _religious_ icon she may be...

And yet...

“As I told you, Pagan does not care for children, let alone anyone else in this blasted world. He would rather see Bhadra murdered for being Tarun Matara. Would rather do it himself, with a blind trigger in cold blood,” Sabal promises her, and when she meets his burning stare she _believes_ him.

It all makes perfect sense, after all. The King has let this country rot while he profits from its neglect. He’s lived a life of luxury and apathy in the North where he’s comfortable and safe, untouched and unseen for nearly two decades. Driven to madness and seclusion because his little baby daughter was _murdered_... of course he wouldn’t be above doing the same himself.

_Sick fucking bastard._

Vanya’s hands are cold, but her face burns white hot as she presses it to the window of the truck, watching the world roll by. They’re going to a bell tower, she’s been told. One of the decaying structures she’s seen scattered through the country. They’re going to _shut Pagan up_ , she’s been told. Whatever that means.

_Fuck,_ how conflicted she feels. How much her love for him tugs at her chest, churns in her gut, getting sucker-punched by this bitter picture of him holding the barrel of a rifle to that bright, intrepid young girl’s face.

“He won’t touch Bhadra,” she whispers to herself, cementing that ache like a brand on her body, “can't. Won’t.”

“Good,” Sabal nods firmly and withdraws his phone, turning back to face forward in the truck again, “let that fuel you, little dove. You will need the fire on your climb.”

_Hang on…_

“Climb?” she asks, raising a skeptical eyebrow though he certainly can’t see it.

“You have a long one. I hope you know how. It is a damn shame your back is so weak, but…”

The bell tower looms above them on the crest of a hill, and with the windows rolled up she can hear a muffled but distinct broadcast. A women’s high, sardonic voice echoing over the valley, rapping on the windows of the truck as they wind up the hillside to the base of the building. It’s _tall_. Easily the tallest structure she's seen in Kyrat, and that’s saying something when she's been living in the direct shadow of the Himalayas for the past four weeks or so. There are two rebels waiting at the base of the tower, sitting casually on the concrete foundation with their guns resting beside them like they've got nothing better to do at all. Not even Sabal's arrival stirs them, though they watch on with mild disinterest.

He doesn't exit the truck, nor does their driver. At first Vanya isn't sure she’s supposed to either, nor does she want to.

_Climb?_ God no.

“Sabal you… you _can't_ be serious,” she says, crossing her arms, “how far am I climbing that? What am I doing when I've climbed as far as I'm supposed to climb?”

Sabal turns over his shoulder to her slowly, _nonchalantly._

“You will climb until you reach the radio device and you will shut it off, Vanya. Ajay Ghale scaled _three_ of these towers for us in the time I knew him,” he jabs at her snidely, and she wants to snarl right back at him.

“Do I look like the type of woman who's athletic enough to scramble up that fucking thing? You're fucking mad! Let alone _beaten half to death_ and still bruised to shit a— _Ajay?”_ every sneering thought flies right from her head as his words come full circle and she sinks back into the seat.

_“Oh_ there is so much you were never told, I see,” he laughs, shrugging his shoulders, “he is the son of Mohan Ghale, founder of the Golden Path. A story for another time, little dove. When you get back down, maybe. This tower was Ajay's second reclamation for me. Pagan took it back. I think it will send him a _lovely_ message if we send you up there next. Now hurry. I cannot tell you how _fucking_ tired I am of hearing this propaganda.”

_Ajay…_ safe at the palace, right-hand man to the King… Son of Mohan. Son of Ishwari. Wayward expatriot… Poor fucking Ajay. Stuck between all these tugs of war, doing what he thinks is right.

But she can’t climb. There's no fucking way. Piss-poor motive, zero incentive, no reward… she can't. _Won't._

“And what if I refuse to climb the tower, Sabal?” Vanya asks, picking nervously at the fraying hem of her mud-caked shirt.

The answer she gets is a simple one.

From her side of the back seat she can see that horrid coil of hose hanging from Sabal's belt, right in plain sight for her. She can see his hand as it skates over it, but he never grabs it. In the stillness of the truck she can only hear the muffled echoes of that blaring broadcast outside, and the soft _clink_ of his beaded bracelet brushing against something metal that he's reached for between the front seats on the floor, out of sight.

“You will climb,” Sabal says, calmly.

_Demurely._

And in his hand, cradled with every blatant intent, is the long, glittering curved blade of a kukri. A threat.

_She'll climb._

The moment she's out of the truck they’re gone, not even bothering to stay behind and make sure she obeys orders. Perhaps that's what the other two rebel guards are stationed here for, though. Neither of them make any indication that she's even a blip on their radars except to nod their heads curtly at her in passing.

_...the Ministry of Public Affairs and Social Harmony..._

The broadcast is loud and sharp, clear as day, even as she pushes through the rickety old door into the cool interior. It's all wide open, falling apart. Echoing inside with this woman’s lofty, cruel voice. How she hasn't managed to hear it ringing through the valleys out and about is a mystery, but then perhaps these towers are strategically coordinated to not bother Pagan, or Paul, or his other governors. Or maybe she's been willingly ignoring their bullshit. Tuning out all the _bad_ in favor of the good. In favor of those brown eyes. That wily smile, that jasmine vetiver smell of him, that-

_“God-children are no match for a good rifle.”_

“I beg your pardon?!” Vanya snarls, whipping back to the doorway to find one of the two rebels leaning in to speak to her.

“I said be careful on the ladder when you get to it, a few of the rungs have broken,” he says, rolling his eyes, “and be quick about it. We have to stay until you come back down, Gadyuka. Do not keep us waiting all day.”

_What…_

She shakes her head vigorously, trying to clear out the delirium, and smacks her forehead with her palm a few times. No time to waste, no time to gain by standing here fucking _hallucinating._

_...This message is to the Golden Path…_

There's no ladder, not anywhere obvious. In the whole of the inner room, decrepit as it is, there's just boxes labeled Kyra Tea, waterlogged and moth-eaten. Flimsy cardboard won't get her up several stories of this crumbling old thing. Neither will her fucking body at this rate, but _that fucking kukri_ is her other option.

“Fuck me… hey, _jackass_ , where the hell do I start?” Vanya snarls through her rising frustration as she turns back to the open doorway, praying the rebels are around to hear her.

“Look for the ropes, Gadyuka,” one says casually from outside and far around the corner, voice ekeing through the holes in the walls.

“What fucking ropes?” she hisses under her breath, whipping back again and scanning the room high and low.

There on a ledge above her head is a coil of rope just draped ever-so-casually over the splintered wood. Not… not even attached to anything at all. No help to her like that. But as she cranes her neck and steps back to look up above, it does look as though this is her ticket up. If she reaches her arms above her head just right she can hook her forearms over the wood and try to pull, maybe and…

_Fuck no. Oh fuck no._ The way her back snarls in response when she tries to support her body weight has her dropping her arms right back off the ledge again and flopping them down limply with a pathetic whine. Like a god damned puppy whelping for air. No, _no._ But maybe if she _jumps?_ Running start? No… no way. Not in this condition, weak and _aching_ as she is. But if there’s ladders the rest of the way up… _maybe…_

“Hey. _Hey._ You still out there?!”

“Have you started climbing yet?” the other rebel eventually answers, incredulous, “By Banashur, woman…”

“…help?” Vanya ekes out, padding back towards the door to peer out and around the corner to the source of their voices

“Help you? Why? Cannot climb? Who did Sabal send?! A child?” he rolls his eyes as he comes around the corner to meet her with his partner beside him, crossing his arms.

Neither of them look terribly put off despite their outward disdain, she notes, and with a huff she turns back inside, slinking into the shadows.

“If you're stuck waiting on me, and I'm stuck waiting on you… we might never leave. Could all die here in the hot sun in this rickety old fucking tower. What a way to go. Man… I guess I'll never climb, and you'll end up bored out of your skull,” she calls back to them, and damned if _both of them_ don’t scramble in after her.

She wipes the grin off her face before she turns back to them, raising an eyebrow in question.

“What? _I_ want to go home…” one of them shrugs, shuffling over to crouch beneath the ledge, and he gestures for his partner, “got nothing better to do. Come on, up you go.”

_Fucking easy. Idiots._ Let them do the hard work of vaulting her up, Sabal can stuff it. Trying to make her suffer her way up. Not any more. Beautiful loopholes! Vanya gets her foot planted in their clasped hands as they squat, ready to lift her, and in two breaths ensuing heaving grunts they manage to haul her up high enough that she can hoist a leg up over the ledge. She manages to scramble up clumsily, kicking the rope down onto the rebels' heads in her struggle, and when she’s on her hands and knees on the floorboards she can finally breathe a sigh of relief.

“Thank you!” she calls down, but they've vanished again, and so has the rope.

Back outside for another smoke already.

Now it’s quiet in here again. Even just one floor off the ground she can feel the old building shudder with every guest of wind. Like it's moving, come alive with the breath of the mountains blowing down around it. Just Vanya, the chilly breeze through the eaves, ladders to climb, and that obnoxious propaganda booming over her head to keep her nervous thoughts at bay.

_...report all suspicious activity to the Royal Army immediately…_

When she finally manages to stand and catch her bearings, it's not long before she realizes that _there's no ladder here either._ In fact, there's _no_ way up from here around the narrow perimeter of the small upper level. Except…

There's a narrow two-by-four jutting out across the open expanse of the room across to the other side. All the way across. And there along the other wall, up another floor, is another fucking rope on another god-damned ledge.

“No. No, there's no fucking way,” Vanya keens, already feeling her back tearing apart at the thought of hauling herself up.

One look down, though, and she can't let herself drop again. It's _just_ far enough of a fall to cause some damage, the state she's in right now.

And there's her old familiar friend prickling at the back of her throat again, tightening in her chest. Like a bird fluttering in a too-tiny cage, trying to break free. Too anxious to move forward, too anxious to move back. Nowhere to go, no easy decision to make. She may as well just sit her ass right here on the floor for all she’s concerned until they come back in and deal with her themselves…

_...may Pagan's Light Shine Upon You All._

Bhadra is at the ghat, maybe even with Sabal right now, cowering to him…

She’ll climb. She has to. For her. If no-one else. She might not even know _why_ she'll climb for Bhadra and not herself, but if the thought of her bright, shining little face gets her off her ass and across that fucking beam, then by god she’ll climb for Bhadra. _Fuck_ Sabal.

Vanya steadies herself with a shuddering sob of a sigh, trying to calm her breathing before she manages to lapse into hyperventilation. No time for anxiety attacks now.

One foot out on the beam, good. Her head is swimming with a thousand thoughts in the silence between broadcasts, and she's almost _begging_ for another one to hurry along.

_God_ it's a far drop. Not far enough to kill her, but far enough to knock the wind out of her. Far enough to break something. Far enough to fail this _mission_ of hers before it's even begun.

Two feet on the beam is too much, and she pitches and nearly loses her balance. Vanya throws herself back onto the floor, landing on her backside with a yelp and stiffening from the shock of pain it sends through her aching spine. With a snarl of determination she's up on her feet again, shaking off the tingle in her limbs, and she lines herself up for a faster pass this time. _Like how she used to pass over fallen branches playing in creek outside in the summertime with mom…_ Fast feet, light steps, short strides, make it count…

_...the Ministry of Social Public Harmony…_

_Fuck she's dizzy._ What did the broadcast say?

_Go, Vanya! Commit!_

One step, two, four, ten, she slips, but the ledge is _right fucking there_ and she catches it hard with one arm. Her feet kick to find purchase on the rotting wood wall, her back is screaming in protest of this brazen abuse, and she can’t help but to snarl out hoarsely through her gritted teeth as she hauls herself up shakily to the next floor.

_“Fuck_ you!” Vanya bellows, at herself, at her _back,_ at _Sabal,_ at the sardonic woman narrating over her agonizing ascent.

The bell tower groans under its own weight, shuddering slightly under her feet, and she has to heave to catch her breath. Every inhale is like drawing razor blades along her back, raking her ribcage along hot coals. She can feel _every last welt_ that fucking hose has left on her, all of them joining in bitter chorus to twist and knot at her, lock her up tight.

But she has to keep going. She hasn't even gotten high enough to find this mythical fucking ladder the rebels assured her exists in the tower somewhere.

On this more spacious level are piles of boxes, more of the same from downstairs. Mounted to one side on a tall tripod facing the access road is an LMG, glittering in the morning sunlight. The worn metal casing looks much like a dushka, Vanya muses, and she can almost see that shock of platinum hair ducked behind it for cover. The wild look in his eyes, thrilled and terrified all the same. Like the best Tuesday morning either of them had ever enjoyed, out there by the wreckage of the jeep…

_...this Golden message Path Vanya…_

_What?!_

These broadcasts are fucking strange.

Her chest is tight.

She’s _dizzy._

_So fucking dizzy._

There's another ledge off to the side. Another one she'll have to haul herself up, unfortunately, and so she kicks aside the boxes in her way and backs up to take another running start. It's becoming difficult to keep her balance even when walking on a normal surface, let alone across anything precarious. It’s starting to sink in that _she might just die here_ if she’s not careful.

_Alone. Without anyone. Paul. Pagan. Bhadra. Ashley._

_Go, Vanya!_

In five wobbly running strides she's crossed the floor and managed a bit of a higher leap this time, though not much. The pain is _much_ worse this time, exaggerated by her first attempt, and the cry it rips from her as she rolls herself up and over onto her already throbbing back hurts her throat as much as it kills her body.

_...suspicious Army report Royal activity…_

_Make it stop._

_Please._

Holy shit. Holy _fucking shit._ Here's the ladder. Right in front of her as she flops onto her side. The beautiful, gracious, sent-from-heaven ladder. Rungs missing, just like they said, but _it’s the ladder!_ Vanya chokes out a barking laugh, wheezing as she grips at her ribs to try to keep them all in place, and it burns to breathe. Like her lungs are made of sandpaper rubbing at her insides.

“That's fucking rich!” She cries, pushing herself up slowly onto her feet and bracing herself against the nearby wall for support, “the most beautiful ladder I've ever fucking seen Jesus Christ!”

Surely she's almost to the top. Surely this is the last little climb, and it'll be all easy going from here. No sane person, Royalist or Rebel, would put the propaganda _all the way at the top_ of this fucking tower. Far enough up to deter meddlers like her, sure. But certainly not another 4 or 5 floors high. The relief rushing through her is almost enough to numb her pain, _almost_. If only because she can look forward to getting the hell out of this stuffy, muggy tower. For good.

With the last little ounce of determination left in her, Vanya sets to climbing the ladder, being as ginger as she can with her shoulders. She'll need them for the climb down somehow. Atop the ladder is… _more open air_ , no floor. Another rigging of two-by-four, this one leading out to the roof. Must be out there, then. The broadcast does sound louder, as hard as it is to hear over the dull roar pounding in her head.

_...may Light Shine Pagan Loveyou Vanya_

_Loveyou. Loveyou._

_“Fuck!”_ she cries, stuffing both hands over her ears as her chest tightens again, hard, “Out! Stop! Shut the fuck up holy shit!”

Cross the beams, get on the roof. A step closer to freedom. Simple enough, just _go, Vanya!_

The pivot in the beam is hard to take but she just manages to make it, launching herself under the low clearance and skidding out onto the shingles of the roof haphazardly. Great! She's made it! Perfect! But there's no equipment to be seen. Not a lick of anything electronic, or a single speaker. Nothing. No. _No_.

_There's no way…_ She's not going to make another fucking jump. Her shoulders simply won’t support another pull. She can't support her own weight. She’ll fall and _certainly die_ from here, or Sabal will climb up here himself and put a bullet in her skull if she never comes back down.

Stuck. _Stuck._

_Can't breathe. Hurts to breathe. Can't move._

Sprawled out, laying here on her back, letting her muscles sag and ache and throb, she gives up. This'll have to be it.

All at once she's back in the airplane. Fresh out of America. Still not sure where she’s going, but terrified of the hours-long flight ahead of her with a man she barely knows. A man she has to trust, who says her father might die tonight if luck isn't on his side, or if these bad men get to him. She's laid out on that stretch of cushioned bench seating, catatonic and gripped with paralyzing fear. Paul could be dead for all she’d know, she’s up where there’s no service and her fucking phone is at home. Pagan won't help her any, and he certainly doesn't seem to take well to her. They’re like two angry badgers, snapping at each other…

She’s in his arms, warm, secure, for the first time there on that bench. Breathing in his good, warm, _Pagan_ smell. Jasmine oil and the smell of incense smoke. She doesn’t know yet that this will come to smell just like home. More like home than Paul's hugs, or her pillows, or the Harmon's house, her mom's sweaters she keeps boxed up and buries her face in on hard days… He's new and unfamiliar but so warm, so different from anything she’s known before. His lips are soft, almost afraid. His kiss is sweet, if not a little brusque.

His hand is between her legs, fingers inside her, his teeth on her shoulder. Cock in her grasp, hot breath fanning across her neck, making a mess of her shirt and her hand as he croons so sweetly through his climax. She's so whiskey-drunk that her whole body feels hot to the touch, and so is he, but everywhere he touches feels like molten gold. Casting sparks across her skin and heating her from the inside out. She feels beautiful, alive, empowered, but then it's _cold_ when she comes down from that high. When she realizes he's just a stranger she got carried away with.

They're tangled up together there on the wooden floor in Paul's little office. She can hear his heartbeat thrumming in his chest as he tries to fall asleep, curled up around her like a safety net. Like her protector. Like… he's her lover. _He's her lover_. Still so new, so different, but so much more familiar now. Home. Here, on the cold floor in his warm arms, looking forward to tomorrow morning as new people. To tomorrow as _together,_ _maybe_. To tomorrow still in Kyrat, the place she never did leave. The place Paul came to, too. Safe as he’s able to be. Waiting for her.

They're tangled up together there on the wooden floor in Paul's little office and she doesn’t want to leave him to get dressed and visit Varshakot. The booming speakers at the top of the tower are like a deafening roar. Pagan looks so peaceful when he sleeps. She still feels the lingering butterflies of last night all over her body like electricity. The tower groans and the wooden walls rattle with a strong gust of wind. When she tries to move his arm from around her shoulders, he mumbles and buries his face further into her hair. His sleepy snuffling tickles her. Her back aches terribly from all the strain put on it, from all the welts from that _fucking hose…_

_...is Pagan Min. I am disappointed in-_

_Pagan?!_

She can’t understand him, not through the fog of her anxiety attack, but it's _him_. His voice. Aching and biting, so awfully wonderful and agonizing at the same time. There above her, around her, like a guardian angel coming to preside over her if only for a moment. Even after the broadcast is over Vanya clings to the echoes of it, trembling hard where she lays.

Just as much as she wants to be curled up in his arms, wishing away the pain, forgetting about Sabal and Sanani and Bhadra… _God-children are no match for a good rifle._

_...why must you continue your struggle?_

The resurgence of that awful, sharp, bitter voice sends an icy jolt of resentment straight through her stomach, chilling her to the core. It washes her hazy thoughts of Pagan and Home and Comfort straight out of her, scratches at that deep-embedded ball of rage, invoking the heat. Like a catalyst, it ignites her, arching her rigid along the roof and sending her up onto her feet with a snarl.

“Shut _up!_ ” Vanya bellows, stumbling forward towards the next obstacle in a blind fury.

_She'll climb._

Time moves as much in slow motion as it does in high speed, propelling her forward like a bat out of hell up the final few vaults to the top of the bell tower. It feels like it's been hours since she first set off up that ledge down there. As soon as she lays eyes on that big box of expensive radio equipment, she knows exactly what'll feel just right. Back screaming, arms limp, shoulders crackling, she has but one final option.

Foot planted firmly on the casing of the fancy hardware, Vanya shoves hard, sending the heavy thing easily over the edge of the roof and crashing down to the earth below. Her rebel guards both wail out in surprise, clearly startled by the sudden outburst, and one of them yells something up to her about nearly dying.

_Good_ , is all she can think with a delirious little giggle, dropping back to her ass and flopping onto her back despite its protest. She just can’t be bothered to care any more.

_“Oh Kyra_ you could have killed me!” one of the rebels bellows, barely an echo down below.

Only audible because she's _finally_ shut that intrusive bitch up. Now it’s just Vanya, her thoughts, the wind, and the bell tower. _And_ her whinging, unappreciative captors down below.

“Fuck you!” she manages to bark out to them, slowly losing her breath again as realization creeps in, crippling her.

“You were supposed to jam the signal, not destroy it!” someone calls up, distant, hazy under her encroaching fog.

_She's tired._ So sleepy. Bhadra might be a little safer now, she thinks idly, hopes. Prays.

“Gadyuka, are you coming down?!”

_Are you coming down?_

_A re y ouc o m ing d ow n?_

_Ar e y o uco m ingd ow n ?_

_Oh she's dizzy._

_Mama is here._ So is Dad. How they managed to slip away from Laura for a day and settle down for an afternoon picnic she doesn't know, but it's so nice here in the sunlight. Dad is never very smiley, but today he is. He even hugs Mama, kinda awkwardly, and then he reaches down to ruffle her hair while Mama gets their food out. Maybe today Dad will come home with Mama instead of Laura. She always wishes he will. She wants to sit on his lap, like she does on Mama.

Mom is tired. Always exhausted, worked to the bone. Lyme Disease, of all things, as she so frequently likes to remind everyone. Mom says she’s just like Wormtongue, plagued by some evil she didn't ask for, but it's such a strange comparison to make. She’s just grasping for some kind of similarity to that favorite world of hers. She thinks Mom is more like Sam. Hard-pressed and under-appreciated, ever-loyal. Mom is a Samwise. On good days she can still get her to sit down and talk about the elves and the oliphaunts and remind her why she chose that Elvish name for her, of all names. Silly, fantastical Mom of hers, so tired all the time. One day she might drop, and she'll have to be Sam herself, and carry that burden for Mom.

Dad is here at the funeral with Laura at his side, little Ashley on her hip. She walks on his other side, trying not to look at Marina there in the casket. That's not Mom, not her Samwise the Brave. Not her Everything. Mom's in her heart, Dad's right here even if he’s all caged up and locked away. That’s just Marina Rotenberg, done up so nice and looking so pale, and so so gone. Paul cries a lot. Even Laura cries a lot _. She_ doesn't cry. She can’t. That's Not Mom.

Mom is here in her heart. Not there in the casket.

Mom feels so warm, like a dream, hugging her tight. It's been a long time and she hasn't missed her this bad in a long time. Pressing her hand to her forehead. Checking in on her. Leaning over her.

_Dushka wake up baby girl. Open those brown eyes._

Mom looks strange. Tan and lean and short-haired, squinting down at her with concern, lips pursed and brows furrowed. Mom doesn’t feel quite right with her eyes open so Vanya shuts them again.

The hand on her forehead comes right back. Pressing gently, then shaking her shoulder to rouse her.

_Dushka wake up baby girl._

But she doesn't want to wake up. Up means daylight. Up means back to work, watching Ashley, working hard, cleaning house. Up means. Well. _Up_. But the hand on her shoulder shakes again, and Mom's voice sounds so much deeper than she remembers.

“Vanya. Vanya can you hear me? Hey. Wake up.”

Sounds like Ajay, that strong California accent of his. How funny, Mom shouldn't sound like that.

_“Vanya_. Hey. Look at me, open your eyes, are you okay?”

Mom _looks_ like Ajay. How funny, this is such a surreal dream. Ten more minutes of sleep and then she can get up and back to the daily grind. It's not a long walk to Paul's house. Mom will be too tired to drive. Defeated by a tick bite, of all things.

“Mmmom stop, chill,” Vanya mumbles, blinking bleary-eyed at this weird sun-haloed dream vision.

Mom but Not Mom. So strange. Maybe if she falls back asleep completely she can just start over with a new dream. Less weird.

“You're not okay, _fuck._ Hey. Come on wake up snap out of it.”

_God, she’s dizzy. Sleepy, too. So, so sleepy._

“Vanya, hey. _Pagan is here._ I need you to wake up now.”

_Pagan is here…_

Hang on. Mom doesn't know Pagan.

Pagan is here…

Vanya's nerves prickle. There's a hand still on her shoulder, still trying to shake her awake. She sucks in a big breath, feeling her body come alive again. Fingers and toes twitching, prickling. Her back throbs with ungodly pain.

_Pagan is here…_

Eyes open again, someone's face right in hers. Not Mom's. The bell tower groans, shifting in the wind, ancient boards creaking in exhaustion. Ajay meets her eye, worry written all over his face. A rush of adrenaline hits her all at once, knocking the air right out of her lungs like a sucker punch. Sabal, Bhadra, Pagan, Ajay…

Holy fuck.

_Holy fuck._

_Ajay._

_Pagan is here!_


	16. Secret World

It takes Vanya a full several minutes to fully register that yes, Ajay Ghale is in fact crouched beside her in camouflage fatigues at the top of a fucking bell tower in the wilderness of Kyrat. She can't even begin to form any sort of intelligent response to his presence. Doesn't even think to ask  _how_  he's found her or what he's doing here. All she can think to do is to throw her arms around his shoulders, tired as she is, and _squeeze him_ until it hurts her too much to do so.

“Holy fuck. _Holy fuck. Holy. Fuck,_ ” she chants like a prayer into his shoulder.

“Holy fuck is right, what the _hell_ are you doing up here Vanya?!” he asks, awkwardly resting his arms around her back.

She hisses when he comes in contact with her, and he draws away in surprise, stiffening up. It’s so much worse now, _so much_ _worse._ A dull but consistent ache before, easily forgettable. But now that she's beaten herself to death getting up here, she's tender and torn apart.

“Sabal sent me up here,” Vanya says, pushing him away and sitting upright, “to-… to shut the propaganda down again. He said-… he said you…”

Ajay bristles up in an instant, his eyes hardening into something unrecognizable. She's touched something almost instantly in him just with a few words. With that name. A name she never wants to hear again. He stiffens and clears his throat, shaking his head.

“I did. Well over a year ago. Vanya are you okay? God you look _fucking awful,”_ he hisses, trying to deflect the subject, “Let’s get you home, kay? You're safe now.”

_Safe. Ohgod, safe._

The gravity of that hits her hard, like another sucker punch to her chest. It's still difficult to keep her thoughts straight, exhausted and muzzy as she is, but the relief flooding through her is overwhelming. Nothing else matters right now. She can worry about the ifs, ands, buts, extraneous things later. It's time to go home. But…

“Ajay, is… you said Pagan is-" she whispers, eyes wide.

“Yeah! God he’s fucking worried sick. He’s just down on the ground waiting for you. He’s the whole reason we’re here,” Ajay perks up, sounding for all the world like he's trying to encourage her.

But as much as her chest twists with nauseous excitement at the giddy thought that Pagan is just floors below her, _actually here, that he actually came…_

_He won’t touch Bhadra. Can't._

_That one fucking remark, planting all the doubt she needs._

Such a simple, one-track fear that keeps her rigid, keeps her locked up. But Ajay must see the apprehension in her eyes as he stands up and reaches out both hands to help her up to her feet. He doesn’t question her, doesn’t press her, but the warmth in his eyes is understanding and patient. _Bless him._

Vanya lets him haul her up, taking special care not to yank her harder than he needs to, and she steadies herself for a moment before straightening up and stretching.

“We gotta get you down from here,” Ajay says, “do you have enough energy to climb back down with me?”

She blanches. Thinks of dropping straight off the edge of one of those ledges and crumbling on the rotting wood below, snapping something important.

“I…I'm so dizzy, Ajay…”

“I'll talk you down, okay? I'll go first and we’ll take it slow. We have to. If you stay up here you're a sitting duck and so are we. Come on. Pagan’s waiting, Van.”

Ajay pads over to the edge of the roof where she'd kicked the radio off, leaning over to inspect the damage with a whistle of appreciation. She would chuckle if it didn’t hurt to suck in a breath. Something’s being kicked around far below, down inside the bottom floor of the tower.

“Hey, Peacock,” he calls down over the ledge, not quite shouting.

“Ajay, my boy, is she alright?! Oh for heaven’s sake I hadn't heard you in awhile. Vanya?! _Vanya!”_

_Pagan!_

Despite her apprehension Vanya's heart soars at the sound of his voice, muffled through the walls and floorboards. Really him, really here, sounding frayed to bits and _terrified._ But she can't bring herself to respond. Can't get her throat to utter a noise more than a strained keen as she gawks at Ajay, begging for help.

“She's here, she's awake. She's real weak. We’re coming down. Slowly. Calm your jets old man, don’t blow an artery,” he says back down to Pagan, grinning in Vanya's direction with an eye roll, “now. Come on Van. We'll take it slow. I know a few shortcuts down this thing okay?”

-

Truth be told, getting down is much easier than getting up had been. With Ajay dropping down before her and catching her as she goes, it’s as easy as letting herself drop and hang off the worst ledges they come to. All the while, somewhere down below she can hear the King losing his fucking mind. Bellowing questions up into the rafters at them at every opportunity, some asinine, some redundant. Like he's just as fucked as she is and coping with it much less healthily.

There's a strange dichotomy of apprehension and outright joy warring in her chest. Part of Vanya is afraid to see his face again after all she’s had to see over the past week, all she’s had to endure. That part of her is quite dominant and vocal inside her on her climb down the bell tower. The other part of her just craves that vetiver warmth of him. Wants to be crushed in his arms, regardless of how horribly she aches. Wants to go back home to the palace, to crawl into _his_ bed that will smell so much like him, like Home, and to sleep for days upon days until she's forgotten all about that hose and those hazel green angry eyes.

“For Christ's sake you two, can you go any slower? Ajay if you drop her I will personally skin you alive,” Pagan barks through the floor just below their feet, and Ajay stamps his boot in response.

“Fastest way down from here is around the corner and through this little hole in the wall, actually. It's gonna be a tight squeeze but it’ll drop you inside the main room and you’ll be on the ground,” Ajay says as he leads her around the perimeter of the roof, “can you do that? I'll make sure we catch you. You'll be fine.”

That easy? The climb down has felt so much faster…

“You… you mean I'll be down there… and Pagan will be right there… and we'll be free?” Vanya asks, reaching out and tugging back on his elbow to halt him.

Ajay's face screws up again, knots into a tight mask of worry and concern. He can read her so well it's almost intrusive. Her chest feels tight, her limbs feel heavy. She can smell cigarettes in the air. It must be Pagan stress smoking again.

“Why are you afraid of him all of a sudden? Aren't you excited to see him?” he asks quietly as he steps back over to her, pulling her aside.

“Did you meet Bhadra, Ajay?” Vanya asks, biting at her lip with worry.

“Of course I did. I couldn’t get her away from Sabal. It killed me to leave her with the Golden Pa-" Ajay stops himself, shaking his head hard, “Jesus, sorry. Trigger I guess. Uh. Yes. I know Bhadra. Why?”

_God-children are no match for a good rifle…_

“Did you know Pagan wants to _kill her?”_ she hisses, low and secretive, “Sabal showed me a recording of some radio call he intercepted. I can't… I can't let him touch her, Ajay. That's… I can’t move past that.”

She probably sounds ridiculous, this wild conspiracy. But she _heard him._ Right there on Sabal's phone.

Ajay blinks once. Twice. Thrice. His face cracks into a little smile that he tries to hold in with a dour frown, but soon it overtakes his whole face as he throws his head back and _laughs._ Nothing is funny about this, not in the slightest, but it must be to him, _sick fuck_. He's practically wheezing through his fit of laughter, pottering over towards the hole in the wall he’s told her they’ll slip through.

“Oh _fuck me!_ Hey, toss me that pack of Royals,” he snickers down through the hole, blowing her whole covert little operation here.

Sure enough, moments later a box of cigarettes comes sailing through the hole in the wall, bouncing off Ajay's shoulder and landing in his palms when he reaches to catch it. He jogs over eagerly to her, like a puppy trying to show off the new stick it's found, and in his hands he's got the carton turned to show her Pagan's portrait on the back.

“Fit For a King, yes,” Vanya rolls her eyes, “don't be a jackass, I'm being serious.”

“No, Van. This is Eric. Pagan's body double. Most recent one, anyway. He makes nearly all of his public appearances. _Including the one Sabal showed you,_ ” Ajay points again to the box, “look again. I can’t make this shit up if I try. You can ask Pagan yourself. It was Eric's idea to throw that broadcast out there to rile up the rebels, piss em off. Guess it worked.”

The concept of a body double is well beyond her mental capacity at the moment, exhausted as she is. But as she looks closer at the cigarette carton, it's obvious almost immediately that it's _not_ Pagan. That much is true.

“Just ask him when you're on the ground if you don't believe me okay? Come on Van we're almost there,” he says, carefully tucking the cigarette box inside his jacket, “I'm gonna keep these so he isn’t tempted to chain smoke again. Fucking self-destructive lunatic.”

_“I heard that!”_ Pagan barks, sounding mortally wounded.

God help her, she snickers. It feels good to let herself laugh a little.

Ajay slips through the hole in the wall first, catching himself on the wall and lowering himself down fluidly. She can hear him mumble something to Pagan, and some more shuffling of feet across the floor inside, and _fuck,_ waiting here nervously isn't going to get her anywhere. She'll have to commit and face the music when she’s on the ground. There’ll be time for everything later. The sooner she's on the ground, the faster they'll all be back at the palace far away from Sabal and his men.

Onto her backside Vanya goes, scooting over to the edge carefully like Ajay has showed her to get her down the other ledges. Both legs over the edge, and from here she can’t see into the shadowy interior room for how bright the afternoon sun is burning on this side of the tower. But Ajay will surely be waiting right there for her. Why wouldn't he be?

_Just focus on getting down, Vanya. That first. Before anything else._

One hip over the edge, sliding carefully as she tries to ease herself down, and two strong arms close around her legs just like every other time. But she’s being _lifted_ from the ledge by the waist, clutched tight to someone as she's practically pulled down to the floor in a tangle of tight, trembling limbs. Vetiver warmth, like Home. Soft, reverent, _urgent._

_PAGAN_

_“Oh_ my love. Oh _dusha_ I’m so sorry, _so fucking sorry,_ ” he pleads like a prayer, and he's right here in front of her, _around her._

He’s crushing her to him where he can grasp her but keeping her steady so he can look her in the face, stare her right in the eye. In a short matter of seconds all her worries are gone out the window, all her fears tossed aside because he's _fucking here_. Those bright brown eyes burning into hers, glittering suspiciously with what might be real tears. Looking her over like she's the only thing that matters in the world.

“Pagan, oh God,” Vanya manages to keen out hoarsely, finding her arms winding around his strong torso and squeezing tight, “oh God you're here oh my God.”

“Shh, love. Hush,” Pagan whispers, tangling his fingers in her hair and kissing her, deep and soft and warm like he can say more this way.

Like he’s promising her the world with just the press of his lips, and _oh_ how it burns so good in her throat and her chest and her heart. All of their aches laid bare in the little gasping space between them, the centimeters between each urgent kiss as they part and collide again and again, drawn back to each other like they’re starving. Aching. Loving.

She can’t even keep her eyes open to take him all in, her limbs and head growing so heavy so fast as she loses herself. Her body knows she's safe. Her mind knows she’s safe. She whimpers so quietly on his lips, pulling away blearily to tuck her head against his chest as he cradles her close, runs his hands over her burning, aching back. The pain is so far beyond her now as she listens to his anxious, thundering heartbeat in his warm, strong chest, her cheek pressed up against him and her forehead nestled in the warm hollow of his throat.

_Safe_. Sleep takes her before Pagan has even laid them back and curled around her. She's already Home. Nothing else matters.

-

Vanya wakes to soft, little kisses on her eyelids and brows and cheekbones, dancing like little butterflies on her face. Pagan's big hand is settled warm and heavy on her neck, his thumb brushing tender little circles into her jaw. She's right where he left her, nestled up against his chest with his other arm under her head as a pillow. He’s curled up just so to protect her from the hard, achy floor, just like he did that night in Paul's manor a week ago. It can’t have been that long she’s been asleep. It's still bright outside, the sun hasn’t shifted much.

That has to have been the best damn sleep she’s gotten in weeks, and damn if she doesn’t feel like a new woman snuggled up in his arms. Still aching but heart singing, serene and fluttering.

“I want to wake up seeing your face like this every morning in my bed,” he rumbles, his voice soft and sweet as honey, “though certainly not so sallow, _dusha_. You look terrible…”

Her eyes flutter shut again, unable to watch that aching concern well up in his eyes, and his fingertips dance across her face almost too carefully. So warm, so soothing. But like he's trying to will away what he feels of her. She hasn't seen her reflection in damn near a week. Has she lost that much weight? Feels like it, certainly…

“I feel like shit,” she admits with a hoarse chuckle, and Pagan draws her in for another tight hug, causing her to whimper in pain as her back groans in response.

He releases her immediately, snapping back like he’s been burned, but she shakes her head slowly. No, not his fault, not really. _Don't talk about it._

“What did they do to you?” he asks though, sorrow in his trembling voice, “Ajay, my boy, get our bags for me. I'm going to wring Sabal’s wily fucking neck _so help me-"_

“Pagan, _I love you,_ ” Vanya finds herself uttering, hands flying out to clutch at his shirt as she scoots herself into some sort of semi-sitting position, “I love you. Don't- I can’t… let's just not, okay? Please… I want to just forget about him. Let's just talk about anything else okay?”

He stills in a rigid poise, eyes wide, lips parted in a surprised little ‘o' as he looks up at her and pushes himself up to sit beside her. His face is prickly with unshaven stubble, and his lids are dark and sunken like he's lost sleep over her. There’s that tender regard in his eyes again as he reaches to squeeze her hands with his own tightly, showing her with the burning fire in his gaze that _she means something. Everything, even._ It makes her chest ache so tightly.

“I love you too,” Pagan assures her, firm and clear and leaving no room for argument, “Vanya, sweetheart… make no mistake, I want nothing more than for us both to forget this ever happened but-… but we can’t. Maybe for a while, until it doesn’t hurt so much, but…”

It's genuinely strange to see him at a loss for words like this, sat here beside her with his mouth opening and closing over and over absently. He turns one of her hands over in his own, seeming to resign to this hush of his, and Vanya gazes on as his long fingers trace little patterns in her open palm. The sensation tickles, makes her want to curl her fingers in and squeeze his hand to stop him, but she simply watches, mesmerized, drinking in the closeness of him. She doesn't even notice Ajay has returned to their company until he drops two utility backpacks beside them and squats to seat himself spread-legged on the floor facing them both. Pagan makes a pleased little chirrup and releases her hand, snatching up one pack and stuffing both arms elbow-deep inside, seeking something. Finding energy and purpose in his search, growing more and more _cheery_ as he burrows.

“Oh, _no, not this_. Bollocks…” he mumbles to himself, rooting through and tossing a twist of rope over his shoulder.

Vanya watches it hit the wall and slide down limply, forgotten on the floor and soon joined by a camouflage shirt much like the ones they have on. Ajay clears his throat, bringing her out of her daze as she stares on at Pagan's frenzied search.

“Hm?” she blinks, wobbling a little as she stretches her legs out, intruding into Min's personal space to no protest of his own.

“So, uh. He's not gonna say it. So I’m going to,” Ajay says, throwing a sidelong glance in Pagan's direction.

The King hums obliviously, still rooting through the bag and starting a little pile of things between his knees and hers. He looks content, but she can see that little prickle of something sharp and fearful turning at the corners of his eyes, trying to be stuffed away again.

“We can't go back to the palace with you Vanya. It's just not a smart idea,” he continues, and Pagan gasps like he's been mortally offended.

_“Ajay!_ I told you we were to wait until she felt better!” Pagan chides, hand over his heart as he reaches out to grasp at her scuffed-up knee with the other hand.

She should be shocked, really. Should be reeling at the idea of going anywhere but the palace. But somehow, with Pagan and Ajay right here keeping her steady, well, it just sounds alright. Like a new lease on things. All the time in the world. More time to plan.

“No, I get it, I want him fucking hung,” Vanya nods solemnly, “Sabal needs his ass handed to him, and the Golden Path will continue to be a threat with him at the helm until we root him out. I don't much like how you two let this country decay, too, but at least you're not kidnapping and _beating-..”_

_No, stop. Hush. No more._

Ajay's face is hard, his jaw set firmly, but Pagan's eyes are full of agony. Like she's kicked him straight in the teeth and gutted him at the same time. He hisses through his parted lips, his breath gusting out of him all at once, and his face is glazing over fast. It's Ajay who backpedals for her, taking a deep breath and clearing the tension in the room with a single question.

“Anyone hungry?”

And just like that, bless his heart, Pagan winds right back up into his cheery self again. All smiles and a twinkle in his eye, regarding Vanya with such a glitter about him. She can exhale again, her worries blown apart for the moment.

_Thank god._

“I'm afraid we don’t have terribly much to eat, certainly not for my tastes, but I see that look in your eye,” he grins, hooking a finger under her chin and tilting her up to meet his gaze, “you've always been ravenous. I can’t imagine you’re any less now.”

Vanya snorts, crinkling up her nose, but at the thought of any food more substantial than hardtack and dirty water her stomach rolls flips in excitement. The thought of _lunch_ sounds like the second best thing to happen to her today, right after landing in a Pagan-sized safety net and taking a prompt nap there. Beside her, Ajay has begun to rummage through the other bag Pagan hasn't grubbed his hands into yet, and from its depths he produces a bag full of jerky and a half-empty satchel of nuts. A few MREs, some bottled water. A veritable three-course meal if she’s concerned.

She doesn’t notice that Pagan has scooped up the little bottles he'd collected from his own bag until he’s scooting himself across the floor and practically _onto_ her.

“Here. Aspirin, meclizine, vitamins,” he says firmly with the cheesiest of smiles curling at his lips, “it pays to dump half your medicine cabinet into your backpack, _right Ajay?”_

The pointed, playfully hostile glare he throws Ghale is breathtaking if only because she's _here to see it_. Able to watch him move and breathe and smile, hear him talk and laugh and chatter on. Vanya sets the bottles aside gingerly, respecting the dedication he'd put into gathering them for her, and reaches out to grasp at his sleeve with a gentle tug. Pagan stills, his shoulders slumping, and in all of a heartbeat he's turned to her and snagged her right back into her arms again, crushing her right back into his warm chest again. Where she belongs.

“Need this. You understand,” he whispers into her hair as she feels his broad nose nuzzling into her scalp, sniffling warmly, breathing her in, “thought I'd lost you.”

His arms are strong, his hold is tight, and she's already so lost in him again that she can't feel the pain in her back. He makes her forget so much with the slightest touch. Like in an instant, in their embrace, they're in their own little secret world. Just them, safe and sound, tender and slow.

“Hey. Lovebirds,” Ajay mutters softly, and there's none of that usual edge to his voice, “let's eat and figure things out before you get all tangled up, huh?”

Without complaint Vanya goes to push away from Pagan, but his arms hold fast, clutching her to his broad chest protectively. His heart is thundering in his chest, and despite the wily little smirk she can see stretching across her face, she can _hear_ the anxiety in him plain as day. He’s breathing faster than Ajay could possibly pick up. He's _scared._ And hiding it well. Not like she wants to leave the security of his hold anyhow. They're mostly upright. She can eat like this…

“So how did you two find me, anyway?” she asks as she extends her hand from beneath Pagan's arms to take the water bottle Ajay holds out for her, “how could you have possibly known I was up here?”

She watches Ajay's face crinkle up into a quiet chuckle over the top of the bottle before she knocks back a long swill. Under her, Pagan, too, rumbles with low laughter.

“One of the Golden Rules of Propaganda broadcasts, Vanya – report all suspicious activity to the nearest Royal Army member immediately,” Ajay snickers, “and do you know how many reports we get? _Fucking none._ ”

Pagan _trembles_ with the force of the laughter he tries to hold in until it's too much, jostling her about as his shoulders roll. It's not enough, and soon he's rightly _cackling_ beneath her – a deep and uproarious belly laugh that soon has her giggling too for how _infectious_ it is. She’s never heard such a beautiful sound, from above and below and within her and him, around them, echoing through the tower.

_“One_ report, my boy! We have had one report! Of a freakishly tall ghost-pale woman throwing radio equipment off a Southern radio tower, snarling like an enraged bear!” Pagan bellows, clutching at his stomach with one hand and Vanya with the other, rocking them both from side to side, “ _oh, dusha_ you certainly know how to cause a scene! One bloody fucking report in nearly twenty fucking years and it's my Gadyuka who scared some poor sod enough to come running to the Royal Fucking Army for help. Bah!”

Even Ajay snorts at this, buying into their contact high and snickering right along with them. God it feels good to let this out, to laugh away the ache and the fear and the uncertainty.

-

Lunch is eaten in pleasant, mild chatter, the three of them doing their best to push aside their concerns and just focus on that giddy, infectious high Pagan led them in on. This reunion is exactly what she's needed, even she doesn’t know where they go from here. But somewhere along the way while she'd nestled up in between Pagan's legs, the two of them propped up against the wall, he'd found their ticket to freedom. Those big, deft hands of his, smoothing comforting, massaging circles into every inch of her, up and down her sides and anywhere he could reach… Somewhere along in those pleasant circuits he'd found her little _gift_ from those two fellows, and with a gasp had withdrawn it from her pocket. Had held it up for Ajay's inspection, both of them understanding well before she did just what this was.

And here Pagan holds it again now, cradled carefully in his palm where Vanya can see it as she nuzzles her head under the warm prickly line of his jaw.

“Vanya, we can _use this_. Ajay's friends, they _knew_. Even if they didn’t know you, love, well… serendipity is a hell of a thing,” he grins, “one of us will just have to get close enough to-"

_“I'll do it,_ ” she interrupts, exhaling hard, “it has to be me.”

She's not even sure what's come over her, really. But it makes perfect sense without her even having to think too hard on it. Ajay has too much bad blood, Pagan has- well, he’s _Pagan_. It has to be her. Already on the inside, already close as she can get. She half-expects Pagan to wheeze out again, keening in pain, but he simply nods a solemn nod, meeting her eye as she pulls back to look at him.

“I think you're right my dear,” he nods, and looks beyond her to Ajay for approval, “you can get close to him, and stick him with the pointy end. We can be close by, ready to pounce.”

Whatever he sees in Ajay that she can’t from where she’s facing, it lifts his spirits considerably. There’s that warm grin on his face again. That tender regard in his eyes, telling her silently _you're my whole world_. Sweet and kind and so full of this love that’s still so new to both of them, filling them to the brim with this giddiness that makes her heart flutter. She just wants to take him all in, wants to slip away to that secret world and be his forever.

Pagan's hand finds its way to cup softly at the back of her neck, thumbing tenderly at her jawline, and he kisses her, deep and strong, until neither of them can breathe properly and her heart is thundering on fire. He only pulls far enough away to press his forehead to hers and nuzzle their noses together, eyes half-lidded and burning bright through his dark lashes.

“You are so strong, Vanya. Stronger than you give yourself credit for,” he says, slow and firm so she hears every word just how he means to convey it, “I’m proud of the woman you are. _My_ woman. My Vanya, my viper.”

_My woman._

_Oh._

That twinge in her chest shouldn't twist and spike and needle like it does, but _fuck_ it hurts. She can hear Ajay standing up behind her, and his footsteps shuffling off outside. Giving them space. _Privacy._

“…your _woman,_ Pagan? Is-…is right here the best place to breach this?” she asks, and he answers with another kiss in place of mere words.

Nipping, pecking, clutching at her as he gets her over his legs and settled flush against his chest in such an easy pull. She’s still so weak it doesn’t take much. This New feeling in her chest, coiling around her soft and warm like a blanket, leaves her reeling, fuzzy, _dizzy_.

“What better time, before I have to send you off again? We can't keep meeting like this, Vanya,” he chuckles, and she cranes to hear that sweet noise again, “When this is good and over in a few days, when you're safe and sound again, we can speak at length about it if you really feel we must but… oh for fuck’s sake, don’t make me make a fool of myself _dusha…_ ”

All these fleeting thoughts she’s had from the very start… all these wild inhibitions and lack thereof… every waking moment she’s spent over the past five days yearning for Pagan and him alone, Vanya may as well face herself. This isn’t just some fleeting _thing_. For fuck's sake, she told him twenty minutes ago that she loved him. She does love him. And he's risked his life just to be here with her now, just to _save hers_. It still doesn’t slip past her that he's older than her _father_ , especially as she sits here adoring the lines of aging in his face. Little laugh lines and the crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he meets hers.

“Pagan, there is _nothing_ that will steady me more when I march back down there to the lion's den than knowing I have your heart,” she whispers, smoothing up his shoulders to cup at both sides of his face as he grins up at her, “I love you. I need you. Now and always. This crazy fucking thing we have… you are my strength, my _soul, dusha._ ”

His hands are on her body again, smoothing soft and tender circles up her sides and over her hips and skirting so carefully along the outer edges of her back. This quiet understanding without having to be told, showing her that he knows. He respects her.

“I love you,” Pagan murmurs, nuzzling into her hands as she draws him in to kiss her.

Kneeling over him, even on tired legs and with shaky arms, this feels so much like their airplane ride. They’re sharing this intimate, tangled moment with nothing but heat and want and _need_ between them. She’s so euphoric that the fear of what tomorrow will bring barely touches her here. Vanya kisses his forehead, unable to help herself, running her lips along that healing, fading scar left by that altercation with the Havildar's men. This is so familiar, feeling his hands settle on her hips, heavy and firm, but so new in its own right. They’re not scared and flighty any more. They've got _history. Love. Each-other._

“Do you remember the last time we ended up like this?” she asks as she reaches up to brush a stray wisp of hair from his brow, “how good you were to me even then?”

Pagan grimaces, only a little, but it's more a sympathetic face than it is anything else.

“We were so… so-…”

“Prickly. Like cacti. Emotionally,” she adds when he struggles to find the right word.

“Like… cacti?” he laughs brightly, “yes, I suppose we were, weren't we?”

“But we're not now.”

He squeezes a little at her hips, pulling her down until she's sitting firmly in his lap. Only when she's settled does he let up just a little, such an intensity still in his eyes that it takes the breath out of her.

“No, we're certainly not. I've loved you so much better since than I did that night,” He rumbles, close enough to her now she can feel how hard he's trembling.

Like he's trying to hold something back. Rein himself in. Like there's something underneath the surface that she just needs to prod a little to blow apart. It isn’t even intentionally that she shifts a little in his lap as he traces slow and steady circuits up and down her sides with his fingertips, and he stiffens just a little in response. Trembling just a little more. He keeps straying further up her ribcage, into dangerous territory, but he never seems to let himself get any further.

“I'd like to know what it would feel like now,” Vanya says carefully, taking that well-aimed prod, “now that we're not angry at each-other.”

Pagan's eyes darken and his hands stop abruptly, lingering on her body hesitantly. He sucks in a breath sharply through his nose and with his exhale he seems to melt, shuddering hard.

“You want to…” he murmurs, and the need in his voice does _things_ to the little blossom of ache in the pit of her stomach.

“Please,” Vanya confirms, smoothing her hands up his chest to cup at his face as she's so fond of doing, _“please.”_

He draws her to him and kisses her, starving and yearning and _craving._ But something draws him back just as she's snaking her fingers into his hair, rocking her hips on the rigid arch in his trousers. She's shocked at how quickly he can snap from poignant to possessive to lustful, but the sudden look of hesitation in his eyes when he pulls back to meet her gaze is staggering.

“You're hurting, Vanya… are you sure you want to do this?”

She laughs. She can't help herself. Still concerned about her, so fucking considerate even _right now, oh Pagan._

“Need this,” she nods, finally getting her fingers into his hair and admiring him for a moment, “I'm exhausted but I need this. Just help me.”

With this affirmation Pagan comes undone, fumbling anxiously to get her bottoms down and off of her like this is his first time and he’s under pressure. It takes a little finagling and some gentle coaxing for as tired and wobbly as she is but soon she’s rid of them and seated back astride him, and they're working together at his own fatigues like two eager lovers. As they are. His hands are still shaking, just a little, and his breathing is catching in his throat every so often like he's trying not to gasp for breath. It hurts to hear him like this and know that underneath everything he's still _afraid._

She'll make him forget. They’ll both forget, together, for as long as they can today.

Vanya gently guides his hands away from his belt and back onto her hips, delighting at the warmth of them sliding across her now-bare skin. There's not enough work to do that requires four hands, and he certainly doesn’t seem to mind letting her take control. Instead he wastes no time in wandering down her thighs, grasping handfuls of her as he goes. His touch will never grow old, his kiss will never tire her.

She can't get his fucking belt off fast enough.

There's fire in his eyes, and thunder in her chest, and electricity arcing in jolts between every little nerve ending between them. Pagan is quickly becoming a teeming bundle of frenetic energy, as hungry for her as she is for him.

_There._ With the slide of leather through the buckle and the pop of a button, the slide of a zipper, they're both wriggling him down out of his trousers too. So strange to see him in camouflage and not in some flamboyant, glittering bespoke piece. _God_ he’s beautiful, even in fatigues, flushed and eyes darkened, staring up at her with utter joy in his eyes. He murmurs something to her under his breath out of those flushed lips, sweet nothings in soft Cantonese that she can't quite hear. Pagan is on fire, Vanya is gasoline.

She has every intent to ruck her hands up under his shirt and pull it off of him, but just as she gets her fingertips below the hem Pagan slides his hand deftly between her legs. There's no hesitation this time, no preamble, just the sweet ache of his fingers sliding into her, drawing a heavy sigh out of her. She manages to get a hand in between them, grasping at his erection, like hot velvet in her palm as his hips rock up into her fist urgently. Fucking her hand just like he did on that airplane, not even a full day after their second meeting.

Eyes shut, forehead pressed to his, both of them gasping for breath as they succumb to the fire burning through them, Vanya can almost imagine they're back on that airplane. Crashing together, colliding in that secret world of theirs up in the sky. Pagan croons at the twist of her wrist, stroking him languidly, and she can’t help but to watch his face screw up as he loses himself to her. Lips parted, eyes shut, brow furrowed, far beyond himself. The molten friction of his fingers licks fire through her core as she grinds into his palm, but it's almost not enough. Even as he curls them, strokes that tight bundle of _something_ inside her, she can only gasp and keen and whine for more. Never quite peaking.

So good, so familiar, surrounded by his heat, his smell, his love. But she needs _more._

“Pagan. Stop,” she shudders out as she straightens up, “I need you. All of you.”

He stiffens in surprise but doesn't pull away from her, still easing his fingers into her slowly, intently. They're beyond reason. Lost to the world. The bell tower groans above their heads as a hard gust of wind shudders through its foundations, and she too shivers hard. Too tired to hold herself up like this, too sore to keep straining so much. She reaches between them and stills his wrist, gently easing him out of her though she laments the absence of that delicious friction.

But words won't come to her, not when she’s so far gone and he’s looking at her like that with those big brown eyes, nibbling at his lower lip just so. No, she can't ask, so she'll just have to do.

Already grasping at him as she is, all she has to do is guide him to her and sink down, taking him into her with a slow, hot slide, and _oh god_ she's missed him. Fitting inside her like they're simply meant to go together like this, just the two of them. She's his. He's hers. Pagan hisses through his teeth, eyes blown wide as he arches up into her of his own accord, and his lips are on hers before she's fully settled in his lap.

As natural as it is for Vanya to want to set an urgent pace, she's too damn tired. Let alone it feels fucking _incredible_ to slow down and take her time, drawing up and sinking back down slowly over every inch of him like they have all the time in the world. Savoring each other as tongues explore mouths, hands roam under shirts, fondling, caressing, adoring. He's got one hand on her waist dragging her down on each drop of her hips, and the other snaking up into her tattered shirt, fingers dancing over the curves of her small breasts.

The two of them descend into a tangle of limbs, sighs and love bites, making love like time is at a standstill.

And it may as well be. She's right here, _with him,_ and nothing else matters. Just the hot fan of his breath on her lips, the taste of him, the sound of his crooning sighs and the lewd noises they make together. The molten friction burning her alive, drawing them both into ragged, trembling, rigid messes. So close to the edge, dancing on that line but never tipping over. Riding this high with him until her heart feels like it's going to burst out of her chest for how hard it's beating against her ribs.

“Marry me,” Pagan pants deliriously in her ear as she snakes one arm around his shoulders and nuzzles her head against his.

_Marry me._

_Oh fuck._

_“Pagan!”_ Vanya gasps, pressing her forehead hard into the sweat-dampened slope of his shoulder as she draws her other hand down to rub loosely at her clit.

_So close,_ she can feel him too. Teetering on the brink, every rock of his hips growing more and more erratic until he's grasping greedily at her, pulling her down hard onto him. He tumbles over the edge just before her with a shuddering sob of a moan, squeezing handfuls of her backside and rutting into her deep. She can _feel him_ coming, the heat of him as he throbs in her, spills his seed in her, and in a few short strokes she follows behind him a toe-curling climax of her own.

_She's his. He's hers._

The whole world comes tumbling down around them both as she slumps into his chest, choking out a breathless laugh. He’s still moving in her, she thinks as she shudders through the last of those beautiful spasms, still loving her until he can’t any longer. Pleasure made better by the slickness of his spent seed, shivering through her in ripples of goosebumps as she whimpers for him. Her Pagan.

“I love you,” Pagan whispers, burying his face into her hair, “I love you. Vanya. _Jesus,_ Vanya, I-"

_Marry me._

“I can't,” Vanya utters, quietly as she can, almost afraid to have said it, “think about that, I mean…Right now.”

She's terrified to peer up at his face and perhaps see that she's crushed him, ruined such a beautiful moment, but the only emotion on Pagan's face now is blissful serenity. No fear, no pain, no remorse. Not now. Sweat-dewed and kiss-bitten, burning with a fire hotter than she’s ever seen in him, but not aching. Not now. He's not injured by this subtle let-down of hers. His thumbs trace little circles into the back of her neck, soothing away an ache there that she hasn't even noticed until now.

He would make a good husband. Doting, adoring, _protective_. If ever there were a man she'd settle down with, it's him. And that’s a terrifying thought in and of itself - he's the _King_. A _dictator._ With hundreds of freckles, dark lashes, a laugh that lights up a room...

And she's just... just Vanya. The Gadyuka, too, a piece of her born here in his country. But still just a young girl from America. Still reeling that he's found her suitable to sleep with. Suitable to  _love_.

“In time, _dusha._ I apologize, I overstepped. I was in the moment, I think, and you felt so incredible, so _stunning._ And I've been so fucking _empty_ without you and I suppose it was just a slip of-" Pagan utters, averting his eyes.

“Pagan.”

“Sorry.”

“Don't apologize. Don’t you dare. I want to, I _really_ fucking do. I just… _listen._ Just hold me,” Vanya sighs, laughing breathlessly.

And as she settles her weary head down on her lover's chest, the two of them reclining back in their blissful delirium, all is right for now. Time stands still for them, for her. She's been given this gift of time, and more importantly the gift of _him_. Of Pagan. Her King and her confidante.

For now, here in this bell tower in the wilderness, their secret world is safely guarded.

For now, cradled against _her Pagan_ , listening to his heart hammer in a euphoric rhythm, she’s Home.


	17. Dancing on Eggshells and Landmines

Wild, spitfire woman of his…

All sticky honey and lit gunpowder, sharp as a knife and cutting him deep and soothing the wounds while she does. _His Vanya._

All Pagan had wanted to do when they'd found her was to hold her close, clutch her tight for hours upon hours until they had to part again. All he had wanted to do was carry her home and make her safe, _keep her safe_. Instead she'd struck that match and thrown it to the kindling, loved him with such a passion he hadn't thought he'd ever feel from anyone again. Rising above that ache in her back, one he couldn't even begin to fathom except to know that Sabal had put that there, and inferences could lead him to assume _terrible_ things.

She'd begged and pleaded for more when all he wanted to do was bask in that beautiful afterglow of theirs, with her still settled on his lap. Always fearlessly greedy, always yearning for more of him. And _fuck_ , he'd give her every last iota of his very being if he could afford it to her. He'd bestow upon her the world if only to keep seeing that light in her eyes every time she looks at him.

If his damned body could keep up with her insatiable appetite, he'd have loved her again and again until they were boneless and weary. But his hands were enough, and his teeth and his lips when he couldn’t keep them off of those beautiful freckled shoulders. _Oh_ how she’d writhed, coming alive at his touch and singing his praises to the lofts of the bell tower.

His spitfire woman. His insatiable Gadyuka.

Now she's cradled up to him again, and somehow they've both lost their shirts. Skin to skin, the warm comforting press of her soft, supple body that reminds him just how precious she really is. Just how fragile.

From here Pagan can see her back, bared perhaps unintentionally for him, and the fury rising up in him is hard to swallow. He's glad Vanya seems to be asleep. She can’t see him like this. He has to be strong for her. But _Jesus._

God-awful, sickening bruises bloom down the long length of her strong back, welted up yellow and purple and _black_. Some angrier looking than others, especially around her shoulder blades. She's a watercolor painting of unmistakable _whip marks_ , but not from a proper one. No, Sabal chose a different weapon. One that will leave few scars behind when she's healed. Save for the puckered lacerations he sees here and there. Hit too hard there, not meant to be _broken_.

The burning, boiling rage in him wells up to an almost immolating head when Vanya whimpers quietly against him, nuzzling closer, and all he sees is her broken body under Sabal's hands. His own are shaking. His chest is tight.

_Breathe, Pagan. She's strong. So strong. Now give her your own strength too._

“Mmmhoney?” Vanya murmurs with a yawn.

Her fingers press into his side as she shudders through a good stretch, and with her waking breaths all his fury dissolves into thin air. She deserves better than he's been and he'll damn well give her that.

“Good morning,” Pagan kisses the top of her head, breathing her in through her wild hair, that Vanya smell.

_“Morning?! Ohsabalisgonnakill-"_

“I'm only joking, relax love. It's still daylight. Just barely now. Ajay must be quite generous with his time today. Or he's forgotten all about us,” he interrupts with a chuckle, and she deflates.

Poor thing, so scared deep down inside.

“Will he be back soon you think?” Vanya asks as she pushes herself up, stretching her arms over her head, “when will I have to leave?”

_Please, not yet…_

“I don't rightly know, _dusha_ , only that Ajay will come back when it’s time,” he says, tucking a wayward coil of her hair behind her ear.

And there she sits, staring down at him curiously like a cat. Looking over every inch of him from head to toe as she turns and tilts her head. She asks no more of him, just accepts what he's told her. Even though she’s lost some water weight and the supple stretch of her skin seems to cling to her in just the wrong way now, somehow she’s still radiant. Somehow she’s still glowing, covered with thousands of dappled freckles from shoulder to breast to bottom. Little beauty marks all over her torso he’s taken care to press kisses to, each individually. Hairy-legged and unwashed, injured and exhausted, she's the most stunning thing he's ever seen. She'll make a lovely wife someday. She'll carry _beautiful_ children for him. Raven-haired big monstrous things like the two of them… freckled to hell and back, and _oh._

 _What a thought. What an intrusive thought. Her? Children?_ His _children?_

 _Fuck_ he's hard again. He can't even cross his legs to hide it in his trousers or anything of the sort. He’s naked as the day he was born, laid bare for her to ogle. And oh how she does, brown eyes burning, darkening. Her lips curl up into a wicked smirk and she tilts her head inquisitively. All that worry from moments ago is gone from her, washed away in seconds, she's so keyed into him.

“There you are,” Vanya purrs, reaching out and grasping his cock in her hand like it's nothing at all, “you got that way just from gawking at me?”

Her god damned confidence will be the death of him.

 _“Just_ from looking you up and down, yes... and thinking good and hard about things I want to do to you when we're both safe and warm at the Palace,” Pagan manages to get out before she draws her hand up in a tight, languid stroke.

_Fuck._

“Like what?” she smiles demurely.

She's shifting slowly on her hands and knees, crawling between his legs. Taking the liberty to get herself as close to him as she can again. Vanya grasps him again, stroking slow, drawing this out to the point of almost painful teasing.

“Oh, like loving you good and proper in my bed. Putting on _that song_ again.”

Vanya stiffens considerably, like a cat whose back has been scratched in just the right spot. Eyes wide, a twinkle in them he could catch and put on a ring for her. She smirks, wry and all-knowing, and settles onto her belly between his knees, propped up by her elbows. His breath won’t slow down. He knows exactly where this is going, and he's too ashamed to admit he's rather turned on that she's willing to do this even after they’ve had intercourse in the same afternoon, only an hour or two ago. Neither of them give a damn. They just _need._

“Mm… what else were you thinking about?” her breath blusters across the head of him, never breaking that mischievous eye contact.

_Oh, she’s right there._

“Was thinking that _I-oh fuck me.”_

Whatever thought he had, it's gone. Out the cracks in the walls, blustering away on the breeze as Vanya drags her tongue lewdly up the underside of his erection, base to tip, leaving no length of him unattended. Pagan craves so terribly to close his eyes and drift away on that delectable wet slide as she laps at him, but it's that _fucking_ eye contact that keeps him rooted under her gaze. Eyes watering, pulse slamming in his chest.

“Keep talking,” she says after a long, almost embarrassing pause, letting him paint himself ragged in the quiet of the evening air.

“What am I to say when you’re doing _that?!”_

Her gaze is boring into his, holding that low simmer in the pit of his stomach and keeping the heat burning.

“Tell me your fantasies. Close your eyes, forget all about where we are and just tell me what you _really_ crave. I want to lose myself just as much as you do right now.”

There's a hoarse twinge in her voice, only for a second, and then she's back to herself again. Trying to keep herself collected, poor girl. In the next moment he's obeying her, tilting his head back and letting his eyes slide shut with a soft hiss as she drums her fingers on his hipbone patiently. Waiting. Letting the air chill him where her tongue has traced him.

“I so desperately want to-… _Jesus Vanya!”_ Pagan keens as she takes him into her mouth in a slow, hot slide, “s-spend the latter half of my with you. To h-have a fam-"

 _Fuck._ He can't do this. Words are beyond him. Hard to find and even harder to form, like molasses in his mouth as she’s down there _sucking him off_ so greedily. There's no way he'll last long, shaken to the core by the squeeze of her lips and the curl of her tongue around him, making some _awfully_ inappropriate noises. He chances a peek down at her, dizzy and delirious, and his fingers find his way into her hair of their own accord. Stroking, combing, reverently as her head bobs beneath his hands.

Vanya whimpers softly, nuzzling up into his touch, and just like that he's clenching up, already losing himself faster than he'd care to admit. This wild woman he’s gone and fallen for, unchained and unbidden, he still can’t believe she’s real. The subtle scrape of teeth and a hard slide against the roof of her mouth sends him bucking up urgently of his own accord, yelping out into the night air.

Her hand wrapped around the length of him that her mouth won’t reach squeezes tighter, drawing a shudder out of him. The burning glow building up in him is all too close to spilling over, to pushing him over the edge. The two of them are working an urgent, fluid rhythm in tandem now, winding his springs tighter and tighter until he's on the verge of snapping.

 _“Vanya,”_ is all he can choke out, shuddering hard, trying to warn her before his back goes stiff and he ruts forward, coming _hard._

She pulls off of him just in time, working him through his climax with tight, hard strokes of her strong fist. The whole goddamn room spins, rooted to that one delicious point of contact between them, leaving him gasping and heaving for breath. When Pagan can finally open his eyes, slowly coming back into reality, Vanya is right there over him, and _oh… god damn_.

His spitfire woman, grinning at him ear to ear with his cock still in her hand, his seed in her _fucking hair, on her cheek Jesus Christ what a sight._

“Pagan…” she laughs breathlessly, and his face burns white hot.

“Oh I'm terribly sorry… but that was _awesome…”_

“Awesome,” Vanya repeats, mimicking his accent playfully.

He fumbles for the closest garment he can find, scowling at her facetiously in disapproval, and makes to clean her face up. Doesn’t even think twice about what he's doing or the fact that he's now gently tidying her up like a doting caretaker, humming pleasantly to himself as she beams at him. The moment she’s clean enough of his _mess_ he kisses her forehead, expressing his gratitude silently.

“How long has it been, Pagan? Before me?” she asks nonchalantly out of the blue as he’s just setting down the soiled shirt, and he stiffens.

Not… not as painful as he'd imagined that question would be. She really has a hell of a way of asking such intrusive questions at just the wrong times, but this one doesn't blindside him. Two weeks ago he’d have said he was in too deep if he was thinking about her this way and _not_ doubling over at the slightest thought of Ishwari, but here and now he understands. He's healing. She’s helping him. Applying the band-aids liberally with every _loveyou_ she affords him.

“Couldn’t even tell you, truthfully. After Ishwari, there was no-one. Not even myself, in truth, for a long goddamn time. I rather lost the taste for such things I suppose,” he muses, tapping at his lip with his index finger, “and then you came along and kicked the fucking door down on my solitary little dinner party, didn't you? Little viper that you are.”

“Thanks for pseudo-kidnapping me from Minnesota, by the way,” Vanya snorts, affording him a lingering kiss that hurts him to have to draw away from, and she gets herself up onto her wobbly legs.

“Thank _you_ for being such a good sport,” he finds himself laughing, heaving himself up just the same, “I should think we've found ourselves a mutually beneficial outcome to this whole debacle, hm? I'm so glad you came to Kyrat.”

As it turns out, the shirt he'd grabbed in his haste to clean her up was her own. The only one she has. A right mess of reconstructed tatters anyhow, which he doesn't understand in the slightest. Who tore it up? Who _fixed it?_

Vanya, bless her, stands complacently out of sight of the doorway _just in case_ while he searches through his pack, fiddling with that syringe those drug peddlers have given her. She’s transfixed, but there's pain in her expression. Apprehension. Fear. So many things she's been holding back while they tangled together and forgot all about the world outside this condemned tower. She's falling apart again, and quickly. Clean shirt be damned, Pagan shucks off the one he's just shrugged back on, the same he's been wearing for two days under his fatigues, and holds it out to her.

“What?” she blinks blearily, looking up in a daze at his outstretched hand.

“Take it. You'll think of me. I think you need that little bit of extra strength tonight,” he says, steadying himself with a deep breath.

“Pagan, I-…”

She snatches it out of his hands greedily and buries her face in it, breathing so deeply her whole body rises and falls. When she pulls away again and starts stuffing her arms through, sorting herself out, he half expects to see tears again for as pitiful as she looks. But she doesn’t cry. Not even a watery eye. His strong, stoic Gadyuka. She rather looks nice in it. Better than him. And better off that he knows how much that simple shirt means to her, just because he’s been wearing it himself for quite a while.

Love is a powerful thing like that, to give something so mundane so much gravity.

-

Ajay comes not long after they've both settled back on the floor, nestled up together again with her hands clasped between his. Pagan feels better this way, with his arms around her like keeping her crushed to him will somehow save her from the inevitable. But with the fall of his boots up the gravel walk, his shadow in the wide doorway, the both of them know their time is at an end. It's Vanya who rises first, despite Pagan’s protest, and he's helpless but to scramble up to his feet and follow her limply towards Ajay. Spineless, numb.

“I was going to wait a little longer to send you out on your own, so you'd still get back before nightfall. But there's a change of plans. You've got two rebels heading up the hillside in a jeep right now, taking their sweet fucking time. Van you're gonna have to meet them preemptively and head back with them,” Ajay urges, his face hardlined, emotionless.

“What?! Why? I-I'm not…”

Vanya looks around, growing anxious, frenetic. Her hands clench into fists, and she reaches up reflexively to rub at her sternum in such a way he hasn't seen her do before. Focusing on something. She chokes on her breath and the sound draws the life right out of him.

“You're going to _have_ to be ready, _dusha,”_ Pagan interjects, reaching out to rest his hand on her stiffening shoulder, “the two men before, we could deal with. Two _more_ shot in a jeep, well that's just suspicious when your comrades find them later. We can't have Sabal knowing where you’ve been and who you've been _with.”_

Vanya processes this, eyes wild and chest heaving, and then she stills. Nods once, and takes a deep breath. Taps at her sternum again, clearing her throat, and lets her hand fall.

“But what about my-…your shirt?” she asks with pause, and Ajay grimaces a little.

_Wasting time. They have to take cover before those rebels get all the way up here and see them._

“You've got a standard issue shirt from the Royal Army's uniform. You took it off the soldier who came sniffing around the bell tower when he heard the commotion. The soldier _who killed your two Golden Path friends outside,”_ Ajay says, _clever boy._

_Solid plan._

“O-oh, okay. Okay yeah. Got it,” Vanya huffs, growing visibly more anxious with this cover story in mind now.

Pagan squeezes her shoulder. Tries not to lose his cool himself. They've got mere moments to say goodbye and she’s wasting it asking six thousand questions. Vanya gasps, as if realizing just what he's thinking, and she whips around to throw herself at him, squeezing him tight.

“Iloveyou,” she pleads into his shoulder, _“iloveyou.”_

God, the smell of her, sweet and strong, like _Home._ He can feel his heart crackling, spitting like a dying fire. Dropping out from inside him and straight through the earth.

“I love you too, Vanya. I do. Be strong, love, and go on. We'll be right behind you, I promise,” he croaks into her hair, swallowing back the rush of exhaustion and desperation eating him up, “be safe.”

And just like that, without even a kiss, she's gone. Out the door and trudging down the road to meet the jeep whose engine he can hear faintly rumbling now. Thrust back into his life and then ripped away, pulled by the roots straight from the soil. Pagan stumbles back into the shadows of the bell tower to collect his things, quickly overcome with grief and struggling to even fucking _breathe_. He can hear Ajay outside, pacing quietly, likely watching the rebels carry his Vanya away back to Banapur. He couldn’t have watched even if he wanted to. Couldn't have seen her get in that vehicle with those gold and denim jumpers and disappear out of sight.

_Fuck you, fuck you, FUCK YOU!_

Ajay finds him pounding his fists and his head into the nearest wall, over and over and over. Blown out on a mind-numbing cocktail of indescribably agonizing emotions all combatting for control of him. Fury, sorrow, anxiety, fear, loathing, self-pity, _what a fucking mess you crazy old bastard._

Gone, she's gone, riding right back under the crack of that awful whip, right back into Sabal's tight grasp. He can still feel her lips on his throat, her warmth curled up on his side. The weight of her seated on his lap.

“Pagan?”

 _“Fuck off!”_ Pagan snarls blindly, whipping around to stumble towards Ajay, “what have I _done_ my boy? _Oh_ she's going to die in Banapur. I've killed her, surely I’ve killed her.”

Ajay makes a move for him, hand outstretched like some sort of peace offering, and he stumbles back out of reach with a bark of laughter, harsh and cutting.

“Pagan you need to calm down. I know you’re upset, so am I. But we need to get your shit together,” he says, all too friendly like he's trying to calm a raging animal.

And maybe that’s just what he is. Unfettered and unhinged, gnawing at his own limbs to escape the trap he's in.

 _“Oh_ you're upset too then, my boy?! Sad to see Miss Rotenberg riding down the hill to her certain fucking death? Sorry to have had a precious few hours loving her and losing her and not even getting a _kiss goodbye?!”_ Pagan retorts sardonically, venom on his teeth, and Ajay takes it stoically.

“Listen, man, I'm sorry. I know how much she means to you. I see it now, okay? She means a lot to me too,” he holds his hands up in defeat, “and I told you on the way down here that I'd look out for you, didn't I? I said I'd help take care of you when shit hit the fan, and here we are.”

_Oh, darling boy…_

Pagan withers, deflating in a swift gust, and he crumbles to the floor in a heap of whimpers and limp limbs. Defeated by his own right-hand man. Guilt is an awful thing like that. Always wringing him dry at the slightest inclination. Ajay takes a knee beside him as he curls in on himself, hot tears stinging at his eyes and blurring the boy's face as he leans over him.

What is there to say? That he's sorry? That he'll be fine in five minutes? That he wishes this has all been a clever and well-executed ruse just meant to get all three of them out of the palace for a week? No. There's nothing to be said. All he can do is let it out, expunge those grating, aching emotions that are carving away at his insides. All he can do is wrench out a hearty sob and bury his face in his arms. Ever emotional, especially when he certainly doesn’t want to be. Especially when these are his only two loved ones, both of them hurting in their own ways. But before he can well and truly get to crying, a chuckle tears its way out of him of it’s own accord.

And then another, and then a right _laugh_ , and soon Pagan is on his back cackling to the heights of the bell tower. Wheezing with the effort, clutching at his belly as it starts to ache from the force of his giddy laughter. And poor Ajay can only watch on with concern, one eyebrow raised in question.

“Ajay, you do remember we discussed having Sabal sent to Durgesh for further handling, yes?” he snickers, trying to calm down enough to get out what he needs to say.

“…yeah? That was the plan, to arrest him and hand him over to Yuma until we can publicly try him for war crimes…”

Pagan sits himself up, legs akimbo on the floor, looking a right mess of himself, but in his eyes he hopes Ajay understands what he means to say most of all.

“He won't be going to Yuma.”

“What do you mean he won't be going t— _Oh. Oh…”_ Ajay trails off as that little metaphorical lightbulb goes off over his head.

“He can't, Ajay. Not now,” Pagan snickers again, grinning wide at the thought of this divine justice they'll reap.

Sabal can't survive this. Not now, not after everything he's done. To Ajay, and to Vanya. To his two most important people. To let the man live would be a disservice to the two of them. There's something wonderfully fulfilling about the thought of putting a bullet through his skull before he can even finish a sentence.

“I'll let you do it, Pagan, if you want. But I want to be there. I want him to see me before you take him,” Ajay requests, eyes dark and wary, like a hawk's.

And so it is, with a nod and a pat on each other’s shoulder, that this pact has been made. That Sabal's life now hangs by a thread of mercy, and nothing more. Nothing more needs to be said between them. It's due time.

-

“Well maybe if you wouldn’t have _slid down that fucking cliffside, boy!”_

“I didn't damn well _know_ it was a cliff now _did I?!_ You think I do that shit for fun? Or like some unseen hand just guides me off that shit? Fuckoff, old man,” Ajay bites, whingeing as he nurses his wrenched ankle.

“We certainly can’t proceed like this tonight, now can we? We can set up camp here for the night,” Pagan sighs heavily, slumping back against the nearest tree and sliding down to the grass.

Ajay hisses through his teeth as he tries to roll his foot around and stretch out the muscles. He's already swelling up. Bad news.

“How long are you planning on letting Sabal fuck with Vanya some more? We don't have all night,” Ajay groans, “I'll be fine if I just get it wrapped. Need an ice pack or something for the swelling.”

“We don't _have_ an ice pack. Let alone a wrap decent enough to keep your ankle stiff…” he scrubs his hands over his face in exasperation, willing away all the bullshit of this evening.

And it's damn well true. They certainly hadn’t prepared for an incident like this. Certainly hadn't expected such a thing to waylay them.

“Okay but what about having someone come help? De Pleur isn't far away… he could bring us some supplies from Varshakot too,” Ajay explains, shrugging.

Pagan’s chest clenches at the mention of Vanya's father, and fuck if that doesn't feel like such a ridiculous response to this. Of all the people in his administration – of all the people in _Kyrat_ – De Pleur is the last man he wants to see right now.

“Ajay, we've… still been keeping the wool over Paul's eyes haven't we?” he asks slowly, pointedly, but Ajay doesn't budge, “he still has _no idea_ his _daughter_ is in the hands of the Golden Path?”

“Nope.”

“Well then why in bloody hell would we phone him up and rope him into this little covert operation of ours, pray tell?!” he yelps, a little louder than he's meant to, tossing his hands in the air.

“Noore's too far away. Too busy with the big Shanath tournament right now,” Ajay shrugs, matter-of-fact.

“Why does it have to be De Pleur? Do you think he'll be happy to hear we had his daughter captured, managed to free her with little effort of our own, and then _handed her back to Sabal?!”_

Ajay says nothing more, rubbing his thumbs tightly up and down his sore ankle, gritting his teeth through the pain. Pagan slumps back against the tree, rubbing the bridge of his nose and breathing through his stress. The moment his eyes are closed and off-guard, not keeping an eye on him, Ajay _radios in_.

_God damnit boy!_

_“Kalinag_ and _Moraaja_ requesting _Saphed_ to Khilana Bazaar, over,” Ajay barks, deadpan into the handset.

 _“…Peacock King?!”_ Pagan snorts, _“really!?_ We assigned much more sensible codenames to all of us, Ajay, what in the-"

“Don't like using Alpha One and Theta Two and all that pretentious bullshit…”

“Wait. Wait hang on you got my Army to adopt new codenames, and-…and they're calling Paul _white?!”_ he gasps, all transgressions aside for the moment, _“oh_ Jesus Christ dear boy, I take it back. We're using those from now on.”

Nothing comes back over the receiver for quite some time. Pagan almost thinks to pick it up himself and scold someone for slacking off, but that would mean he'd be agreeing to go along with Ajay's little plan here. They're not too far that they can’t rendezvous at Khilana Bazaar as he's requested, but they’ll certainly make a spectacle struggling down the road with Ghale in this condition.

 _“This is De Pl -_ Saphed - _over… what do you need?”_

_Oh for fuck's sake here we go._

Ajay sighs hard with relief and lifts the radio to his mouth again, clearing his throat.

“Kalinag here, requesting a med kit and some MREs,” he orders into the receiver, rolling his eyes, “ASAP. Fucking fast.”

_“That's….oddly specific are you okay? What kind of medkit?”_

“Ankle brace. ACE Bandage. Ice pack. I don’t give a fuck. Just hurry up. We’re not more than a few hundred yards north of the Bazaar, just up around the bend in the road,” Ajay barks, _“hurry.”_

_“Jesus okay. I'll be there in fifteen, twenty tops.”_

Pagan ogles at Ajay, rather impressed by his brazen display of command. He simply shrugs dismissively, scowling off into the distance for a long, still moment, and then settles to rooting in their packs in search of something. He watches as he procures a bottle of painkillers and knocks back two without water, chucks the rest back in the bag, and flops back to lie spread-eagle in the grass.

Somewhere off in the fading daylight, an angry badger chitters at something. Could be anything at all, fickle and fearless as they are… if they're not careful, sitting still and laying low, they may meet the wrong kind of wildlife out here too. And sat at the base of a steep slope as they are, they’re sitting ducks. Easily cornered.

“Do you think we should start a fire?” Pagan asks hesitantly as the badger shrieks at its unseen adversary off in the distance, “to keep that _thing_ away?”

“Why?” Ajay asks flatly, “don't want to attract any Golden Path out here.”

“Why on Earth would a small campfire draw the attention of rebels passing by?”

Ghale sits up again, looking Pagan dead in the eye with a grimace.

“You don’t know shit about field tactics do you?” Ajay raises an eyebrow, “two Royal Army camp uniforms. Red berets lifted from the Guard. Hanging out in a Golden Path beehive, only a fucking mile from Banapur. Sitting around a big bright campfire all lit up in the night, not far from the edge of the road, close to a Golden Path outpost. Any of that sound suspicious to you, if you were a rebel?”

Pagan fidgets with the beret perched on his head that's hiding his blond hair. It was something Ajay had insisted he wear, and it certainly wasn't entirely a bad idea. If not a little itchy, he found himself often thinking. Fucking wool… who chose wool of all fucking materials? Fucking Mumu, probably…

“But how will Paul find us back here on the hillside?” he asks benignly, “It's going to be dark soon, and we’re not exactly in a specific location he can pinpoint on a map. You were quite vague with your instructions, dear boy…”

“Go meet him by the road then,” Ajay shrugs, “not like I can walk to meet him right now.”

Pagan grits his teeth and sighs, but resigns to his fate readily. He's right. About everything. And so he hauls himself up onto his tired legs, dusting off his trousers and picking up his rifle. His Beretta is still safely holstered at his hip where it should be, back on his belt after having stuffed it away and hidden it from Vanya so he wouldn’t alarm her when she came down. But an extra weapon can't hurt, especially not with an angry honey badger still bustling about out in the brush. Especially not when he’s going alone to the road, the King of Kyrat all by his lonesome in the growing dark of the early night.

Ajay glowers up at him as he rolls out his ankle again, testing out his tolerance, and his grimace only deepens with the movement.

“You know, Ajay, I don’t think I've ever seen you admit defeat to a twisted ankle. You've been through hellfire and back and _this_ is what's doing you in?” he chuckles as he starts to pad past the boy, but Ajay catches his ankle with one hand.

“I'm just being cautious, old man,” he grumbles, all dour-faced and downtrodden, “I can't risk you having to do this alone if I fuck myself up more. We're a team.”

_Oh…_

Swallowing down the bittersweet tightness in his throat, Pagan reaches down to ruffle his black hair and steps out of his grasp.

_Dear boy, never failing to surprise him._

“Only ribbing you,” he laughs hoarsely, “take care. Radio in if you need me.”

He's off down the path before Ajay can say any more, listening to him sigh in defeat behind him. In the year and a half or so that he’s come to know the boy, he’s come a long way from that frightened, hostile tourist at De Pleur's dinner table. They've learned to trust each-other, and to respect each-other. Frankly, more trust has been necessary on Ajay's part and more respect has been necessary on _his_ , but…they're operating at some semblance of _healthy_ now. Even after all the shit he pulled when he'd come back with Vanya and dragged Ajay through the mud in the fallout, he’s still here. Still taking a beating and risking his life just to give him a hand. He really doesn’t deserve him.

The road is quiet, empty, and thankfully badger-free. The little shit up in the woods is almost inaudible from this far down the hillside, save for the occasional angry chitter or snarl. It's probably defeated its foe in battle by now, nasty-ass thing, and is settling down to a nice supper feasting on its flesh. Crazy…

Pagan leans himself back against a tree just off the side of the road, close enough to a spray of low underbrush that he can duck and cover if he needs to. It strikes him that he has no idea what vehicle De Pleur is coming in, or if he's bringing any of his men along with him. He can only pray that Paul is the first man to come cruising down the road, and not a jeepful of angry terrorists with itchy trigger fingers.

Lo and behold, prayers answered, the high hum of an ATV comes whining down the lane, sputtering into view with his Governor leaned over the handlebars. The sun hasn't quite set yet, and the road is still brightly lit enough that he catches Paul's eye with a wave of his hand. Just to be sure, he tips his beret off ever so slightly, flashing De Pleur a glimpse of his hair.

He expects to see that old familiar genial smile on the man's face, but as he rolls up and cranks on the brakes, Pagan sees nothing but unbridled indignation written across his features.

“Ah, De Pleur! Thank you _so much_ for stopping by to help us out with our little issue. I'll just snag that satchel you brought and you can be on your wa-"

 _“Fuck. You,”_ Paul snarls, cutting him off as he hauls one leg over the ATV and stumbles to his feet, _“Fuck_ you, you arrogant _bastard.”_

Pagan stumbles back a few steps, putting space between them as De Pleur approaches him with purposeful strides.

“What's the matter? Ajay sprained his ankle, is that too inconvenient for you? To help out my favorite nephew in his time of need? To feed your King while he's on an _important missi-"_

His last word is cut short by a sharp slap to his face out of left field, a surprising amount of force thrown into the back of Paul's hand as he lashes out at him.

 _“Jesus Christ, Paul!”_ Pagan sputters, clapping his own hand to his stinging cheek, too taken aback to reprimand him.

 _“You_ did this! _You_ risked her life! _You_ brought her here! _You_ got her kidnapped!” De Pleur barks, his voice cutting across the valley, startling sambar up on the hillside.

_Oh no. He knows._

“Now, now, just _calm down_ and we'll talk about this rationally-"

He has to duck to avoid Paul's next swing, a punch thrown wide that would have easily clocked him in the temple if he’d have aimed high enough. He stumbles just a bit as Pagan dances back out of range, but the fucking _idiot_ keeps going for him. He's absolutely seething, beyond reason. When De Pleur gets too close again, getting far too twitchy towards the gun on his belt, Pagan draws his Beretta without a second thought. Sights drawn up on his chest, he heaves in a shaky breath and lets out a snarl of his own, hands trembling.

 _“Enough!_ Calm _down!_ Take five steps back, Paul. You hit me again and I’ll shoot you somewhere you'll feel for the rest of your fucking life,” Pagan bellows, “and for the love of fucking _god_ stop interrupting me when I'm talking! I _hate that!”_

Paul stands frozen, eyes wide, shaking like a leaf from shoulder to fingertip to knee to toe. Like he’s struggling to keep himself upright and mobile. He does not, despite the pistol trained on his sternum, take the instructed five steps back. Pagan holds him here until the frenetic rage in him starts to drain from his limbs, until he's breathing more evenly and his eyes aren't blown wide open like they're bursting from his skull.

He doesn’t drop the Beretta to his hip just yet. Can’t trust a father mourning his daughter.

“Are you calm yet? Are you going to take another swing at me? Listen to me carefully. Vanya is safe. In her own way. Ajay and I are working to correct the issue,” he says slowly, carefully.

He can't even be angry with Paul. No, he understands how he feels. Helpless, blind, gutted, empty… but unlike him, Paul has the benefit of still having a daughter to worry about.

 _“Working to correct the issue?_ What the fuck does that mean?” De Pleur growls through his teeth, “Where’s my daughter, Pagan? Juddha tells me this morning that some fucking citizen actually bothered to call in a complaint to him about someone matching her description climbing a radio tower while fucking terrorists sit and guard the base?!”

“…she’s with Sabal,” Pagan explains as he steadies his grip on the gun, bracing for another blowup, “after we got her down from the bell tower, we made a plan, the three of us, and she went back to him to enact this very plan as quickly as possible.”

Paul grows deathly still. Every muscle in his body tightens into an agonized poise, like he’s in pain. He probably is. Pagan knows this feeling all too well, this crushing realization that’s shutting him down all at once.

“Sabal. My daughter is with Sabal. Vanya went back to him _of her own accord_ and she's caught up in some sort of convoluted fucking _scheme_ of yours, is what you're telling me” he spits out, like the words have a foul taste in his mouth.

“Precisely. Much as it pains _all of us_ to see her walk back into the lion’s den willingly, Vanya has an _in_ with the bastard. Ajay and I can’t keep up with her and meet her from the outside if we don’t get that damn med kit off of you and get him bandaged up.”

Simple enough to say out loud, but still difficult to enunciate. How can he explain to her father any more clearly that they have, all three of them, just potentially sent Vanya back to her death if Sabal finds out she's met with them.

Pagan holds his breath, lowers his gun, and waits. Still prepared to draw and shoot, but not counting on it now. In the course of one deep breath in and out, shaky as can be, Paul falls apart, loses his wits.

“How are we gonna save her Pagan? I couldn’t… couldn't help her. I pushed her away…” he wheezes, “I’m a fucking failure.”

 _“We_ aren’t doing anything, Paul, just Ajay and I. Too many hands in the pot makes things too chaotic. I hate to do this to you, I really do, but I _need you_ to leave us the satchel and go back home, or to Varshakot, or wherever you were, and just leave us be. Make no mention that we're out here doing what we’re doing,” Pagan pleads, holstering his weapon and taking a slow few steps towards him.

De Pleur whimpers like he’s been kicked, pawing at the cross-body strap of the supply bag slung around him. Slowly, deliberately, he pulls it off of himself and drops it at his feet, looking up to meet Pagan's eyes.

“What happens if I don't leave?” he dares.

“I'll make you leave. You know I will,” Pagan shrugs, straightening up, “I may hold high respect for you, but I'm not afraid to punish you for insubordination. Vanya doesn't need the extra help. We don’t need your help.”

Another whimper, a jerk of his head this time, cringing away in pain, and then he's right back to staring Pagan down.

_No, Paul, don’t do this._

“And what if I go back to Varshakot, call in the Royal Guard in King Min's absence, and shell the living hell out of the South until they hand my daughter back to me personally?” De Pleur measures his words, testing him.

 _“Paul. Do not._ None of your dogshit-crazy panic plans are going to bring Vanya home safe.”

Paul's hand twitches towards his pistol again, but Pagan doesn’t even reach for his own. He won't shoot. He’s not stupid. He still values his own life as much as his daughter’s.

“If you let her suffer, Pagan, I swear to fucking Christ…” he seethes, dropping his hand and kicking the satchel hard.

Pagan watches as it rolls over thrice to flop limply at his feet.

“I love her too, De Pleur. Don’t forget that. I can't afford to waste any more time bickering,” he says to the bag, and by the time he looks up again Paul has already booked it back to his ATV.

With a screeching rev of the little engine and a scrabbling spin of the tires on the dirt road, he hauls off back to wherever it is he came from without another word. With a heavy sigh, he gets the satchel and its contents scooped up and inventoried before setting off back up the hill to get Ajay taken care of and both of them fed.

They've got a long night ahead of them, and shitty MRE dinner sounds _lovely_ right about now.


	18. Exercise In Trust

Vanya has been gone for _hours._

She may as well be dead, and frankly all of Kyrat is better off for it if she is.

Self-righteous, trifling bitch, trying to work her shoulder between him and Bhadra…

But what _does_ get him worried is the radio silence from the two men he'd had guarding the bell tower while she climbed. They're good men, responsive men. Ones who should have answered his calls ages ago…

Sabal kneels before the tiny altar in his home, snuffing out the match he's used to light the array of incense around it. In here, in Banapur, nobody will tell him this is illegal. Every one of his brothers and sisters, every true Kyrati in the South, all of them are here in spirit with him now. Everyone rooted firmly under Pagan's heel, forbidden from worshipping their Gods, they all need a savior. They all need _him_.

And so he prays. For strength, for guidance, for _power_ most of all. For isn't that what Kyra has promised him as he walks hand in hand with her land, her people? This is the way of things, and it always has been, and it will never change if he’s to speak for it. _Tradition. Always_.

But Vanya hasn't returned, and two Golden Path brothers are MIA, and Kyra's light isn't going to penetrate him when he's so worked up about this.

“Kyra guide me,” he whispers, folding himself over to the floor, palms spread on the prayer carpet, “tell me where you call me to be next. What you want me to _do_.”

In his pocket, his cell phone rings. The shrill melody startles him out of his repose, gets him straightened up with a grumble, has him fishing haphazardly through the pockets of his trousers before he realizes it's in his coat pocket, which is thrown over a chair halfway across the room _damnit this is the wrong kind of divine sign-_ Before he can scramble up to get to it, the ringer stops. He's missed the call, they've hung up early.

Oh well, not meant to be then.

Back on his knees he goes, settled on the carpet with his head bowed, hands clasped. His men know not to bother him unless something is dire. But whatever it was clearly didn't warrant a far more immediate radio call. If he can just focus on the silence for long enough, hone in on the flickering glow of the candles, he'll get back there. He'll hear her again.

The radio in his coat pocket squawks on next.

_Sabal, come in. We found the Gadyuka. Heading back to Banapur. I repeat, Sabal, we found the Gadyuka._

Well _there's_ a fucking sign if he’s ever seen one. Sabal scrambles to his feet once again, hurrying across the room to fumble in his coat for the little handset.

“Dhonu, where was she?” he barks, nearly mashing the thing to his face in his urgency, “and where are my men?”

There's a long silence, enough to tighten up his throat and itch at that short temper of his, but then Dhonu chatters in again.

“In the bell tower. Rajesh and Ulli are dead.”

_Dead._

_Vanya, what did you do?!_

Before he thinks to respond, he measures himself. Takes a deep breath and swallows hard. This is Kyra's plan for him. Testing him. Goading him into shrinking back into his bitter, volatile ways. He won’t break so easily, no. But _Vanya_ might.

“Dhonu, say no more. Bring me the Gadyuka. I will ask her myself,” he demands, wanting to snarl through his teeth, “and hurry it up brother.”

“Almost there already, be there in five.”

_“Thank the Gods.”_

-

When the truck arrives, Vanya scrambles out of her own accord and his men do nothing to stop her. She doesn't see Sabal coming, or perhaps she's choosing not to look to him. But either way, she's making the wrong choice right out of the gate. He has the hose in his hand before she can even turn around, and Dhonu and his partner shrink right back into the vehicle when they see him coming. His vision is so narrow, tightened down to a pin-prick point of focus, honing in on _her_. She has to learn her lesson. _Has to_. He'll show her. He'll make sure she doesn’t fucking disobey again.

Sabal lifts his arm, squeezing his weapon tight in his hand, and he hisses hard through his teeth catching the rank smell of her, sweat and dirt and acrid things, and _she turns_ in surprise. Stumbles back with a gasp before he can ever bring his hand down, and something in him just won't let him crack the whip across that face of hers. It's more impersonal from the back, where she can’t watch him but he can hear her cries all the same.

_“Damnit Vanya!”_ he bellows, and she shrinks back further, true terror in her eyes.

But she’s not looking at _him_. She's not afraid of _him_. No, he's created a monster of the blasted hose she's watching like a hawk, and a lesser man of himself. Vanya only fears the deliverer of her pain and punishment, not the source of it.

“I'm sorry! I stayed right where you told me once I came back down! I-I was just scared, didn’t want to walk back to Banapur alone!” she keens, holding up her hands, falling to her knees under the shadow of his hand in the last of the evening sunlight.

His arm is still holding up the hose. He's still brandishing it over her. This simply won't do, for what happens when someday the hose breaks? Or when she learns not to fear the thing? His only line of defense will be shot. No, she needs to learn _true_ fear.

“Oh, little dove, you are learning your place, good. But you understand I have questions,” Sabal croons, forcing himself into that sugar-sweet geniality that almost wounds him to afford her.

For good measure, he drops the hose straight into the gravel beneath his feet, puts a foot over it for safekeeping, and clasps his hands behind his back. Patient, approachable, _there. This will do_. Let her soften a little. Her eyes widen when she follows the hose down to the ground with her gaze, and as she traces him back up to meet his eye her hands fly up to toy nervously with her matted, gnarled hair.

“I can answer them. All of them. I promise. I've been good, you'll see,” she bargains with a high whine, “Does the hose have to come to wherever we’re going? If I’ve behaved?”

He thinks for a moment on what would happen if perchance he _didn’t_ bring the hose. Pictures how daring she might get, imagines how far out of line she’d bother to step the moment he left that hose behind. For he may want to assert his own dominance, but that doesn’t mean his first line of defense has lost any of its importance. Vanya sees him turning thoughts over in his head, and she clears her throat, wobbling on her knees a little.

“You know what my answer is,” Sabal growls in warning, and _oh_ how delightful it is to watch her hands tighten in her hair with her anxiety, “But we don’t have to go _anywhere_ for me to ask you a simple handful of questions, now do we?”

She shakes her head vacantly, mouth agape, and the urge to smack that slack jaw is overwhelmingly strong. But she keeps looking back down at the hose, not at him. Just staring at it with such determination as though her laser-sharp focus will disintegrate it into thin air. He’s not going to get very far at all with her so long as she’s just balking at the thing. And so he scuffs it out from under his boot, hefts it up in one hand again – _and she recoils so hard she falls flat on her ass_ \- and tosses it far behind him over his head. He holds her gaze even if she’s not looking directly at him, watches her watching the hose sail through the air and thud to the grass yards away.

The moment it falls, relief washes over her visibly. Her shoulders sink, she heaves a great sigh, and her face practically melts. But now she looks too comfortable, braiding strands of her hair idly as she finally meets Sabal’s stare.

“It is gone. Now you answer my questions, Gadyuka. And when we are through, you can go to bed. I may even let you have a bed tonight, if you can assure me that you were nothing but dutiful to the Golden Path today,” he explains slowly, as though he’s speaking to a child.

“Kay.”

“...first and foremost,” Sabal pauses, looking her up and down again for the hundredth time, “Where in the world did you get that shirt? That is a Royal Army issue...”

Vanya looks down at her chest, hands falling from her snarls of hair to pluck at the black fabric passively. She goes so far as to duck her nose beneath the collar of it and _sniff, strange fucking creature_ , and when she lifts her head again, she looks so far _gone._ Transported to another world, almost. Her answer is mechanical, and forced, like she’s reciting some script only she can see.

“I took it from the soldier who ambushed your two men, after I killed him. My shirt was in tatters because Dhonu ripped it off me and someone sewed it back up. I needed a new shirt. He was close to my size.”

“We found no corpses at the bell tower aside from the bodies of Ulli and Rajesh, and they were dumped over the hillside. Did you do that, Vanya?” Dhonu asks from nearby, evidently eavesdropping, “and where was this Royalist you robbed of his shirt?”

The Gadyuka’s eyes fly wide open, caught by surprise, but her expression reins back in so quickly that Sabal almost catches whiplash. She’s terribly good at acting, but not _that good._

“What was that, Vanya? Did we catch you in something?” Sabal purrs as he drops to his knees beside her, sidling in close.

With her seated on the ground, he’s taller than her for once. Looming over her as he draws in on her, though she stands her ground foolishly. She's trying to look tough, after everything she's been through. Like she's found some kind of renewed resolve out there on the bell tower.

“No, Sabal. Not at all. I’m just shocked that that’s where he decided to put them, and that he bothered to go through that much effort when he could have just shot them and left them in the tower where they died,” she shrugs, sneering right in his face, a challenge, “and I have no idea where the soldier’s body is. I dropped him on the front steps and left him there. Maybe one of Paul's men came up to check on him and took him away when they found him dead. Maybe they moved the bodies of your friends, I don’t know. I hid on the second floor balcony after killing him, and waited until I heard that jeep coming up the hill.”

“Is that the story you are going with?”

“It’s not a story, it’s the _truth,_ ” Vanya bites through her teeth, “But if you’re looking for reason to throw me under the bus, I suppose a big scary suspicious _t-shirt_ and some unfortunate circumstances are good enough, right? _Shoot me now, why don’t you?”_

_If he had a gun..._

Sabal closes his eyes, fingers twitching in irritation, and _no, he’s not going to break._ Kyra expects this of him. It is her test. No, it’s Vanya who will break today. For clearly the bell tower didn’t break her, only gave her twice as much confidence as she left with. And that just won’t do, not for a foreign whore like her.

“You really care about your hair, hmm?” he muses, looking up at Dhonu when he snickers in response, “so bothered by the muck and grime in it?”

Her eyes narrow. She flares her nostrils and juts her jaw out, trying to discern him, and he affords her an innocent enough shrug as he gets to his feet again.

“I... _yes,_ I do...It took me years to grow…” she says cautiously, “what kind of question is that?”

“Oh, nothing. Admiring your tenacity, I suppose,” he offers vaguely, “so tell me now, did you meet with Paul’s men out there at the tower? Are you still conspiring with the enemy? Were you followed back to Banapur? Speak now, Gadyuka, or forever hold your peace.”

_Oh_ how she pales again at the sudden turn, trying to grimace through his interrogation. It’s getting darker by the minute outside, and soon he won’t be able to watch these intricate little changes on her face out here along the road. They’ll need _light_. Indoors somewhere.

“I’ll tell you again, _asshole_ , it’s _just me_. It was always just me. I haven’t heard jack shit from Pagan or Paul since you fucking kidnapped me right out of his arms, _thank you very much_ ,” she snarls, “and furthermore I want nothing to do with him, or his men, or my father. That climb gave me a lot of time to think, and waiting to get picked up gave me even more time. So step right the fuck off your _high horse and-_ ”

No, no. That’s not how they’re playing this game. Truth or not, she will not speak to him like this again. In all of the bat of an eye, Sabal’s rage boils over into frenzied action. One second he’s watching her pretentious little mouth flap in the breeze, spewing bullshit right to his face, and the next he’s thinking of Pagan Min and his men lining the hillsides around Banapur, sniping him and his men out of house and home. Of Paul, shelling the village even with Vanya in it just to get back at him, because she’s led them right to him.

Next thing he knows, his hand is knotted tight in Vanya’s hair, right along the scalp, and with a hard yank he has her crying out, clawing at his wrist feebly. Her eyes watering, her jaw clenching. Had he any empathy, he could imagine how painful it must feel to have a vice-grip locked on hair at the crown of her head like that. But he feels nothing at all but _fury_.

“You just _cannot_ seem to learn your lesson, can you, _kutiya?!_ ” Sabal barks, yanking again until she’s falling onto her side and clutching his wrist as though that will somehow help the pain, “For being so _loyal_ like you claim to be now, you certainly are full of yourself. Learn to respect your authorities, you ungrateful cur.”

She keens, face twisted up and feet scrabbling in the dirt to find purchase, and he hauls her along across the ground for as long as he can manage the leverage. There's something acutely thrilling about exerting this much direct influence over her, feeling her trembling hands squeezing at his bare forearm like it's going to make a difference if she does. Vanya is putty in his grasp, crumbled and blown apart like sand in the wind, broken so easily.

_This_ is the power he's been craving. _This_ is the control he's been after. _This_ is Kyra's plan for him today. He's felled a giant and now he need only take his prize like the fearsome hunter he is.

“Please stop,” Vanya begs breathlessly, “ _please_ , I did what you asked of me!”

“Too late Gadyuka. Think before you speak again,” Sabal spits back at her, yanking hard on her scalp, and she snarls in response.

He can only get her so far before she falters, unable to keep up with his urgent pace, and when she’s dead weight on the ground there's not much he can do. She's much heavier than him, and now nearly limp at his feet, propped up by one arm feebly.

_Well, they’ll do this here then._

“I want you to know I believe you, Vanya,” he says after a moment, still holding tight to her hair as he settles his palm on the handle of his Kukri, “at least mostly… you get a pass tonight. You will have time to prove yourself tomorrow. One last task for you. But tonight…”

Her eyes widen, she sees the blade as he pulls it from its sheath. And all at once she comes alive, shrieking like a banshee into the night. She must think he’s going to dispatch her, as she pleads for him by name, like a prayer, clutching at her pale, dirty throat exposed so prone by his grip at her scalp.

_“Nonono, no no Sabal please no-"_

He shifts his grip on her gnarled curls, getting a better hold further away from the skin of her, and tugs hard again to shut her up. An effort in vain, as she only wails louder, pathetically. Sabal hisses through his teeth, grimacing against the onslaught of her shrill harpy shrieks, and draws back his blade. In three sawing slices, pulling at the mats and tangles, his hand comes away from her head and she drops to the ground at his feet.

Vanya's hands fly up to clutch at her head, feeling what's left of her once-wild mane, and somehow this is worse for her as she keens, withering into the dirt. Throwing a tantrum like a child.

But he’s skinned his kill like any good hunter, even if the pelt smells of sweat and dirt and all manner of filthy things. Suddenly he doesn’t very much want it in his hand, and seeing Vanya staring up, pining for his handful of coils and snarls, _well..._

“They're yours, Gadyuka, _keep them_ ,” he snarls, and carelessly pelts them at her, peppering her in the face with her own cut tangles of hair, “someone get her up. _Time for bed_.”

Dhonu snaps to attention, bringing with him his partner to haul the broken woman up. If she struggles, she'll be thrown in the coop again, he decides. But if she behaves, she’s earned herself a meager bed then, in this mind game he's playing with her.

Vanya doesn't quite do either of the sort. With a snarl, so very animalistic, she elbows Dhonu off of her when he reaches for her, and she hauls herself up to her feet. Trying to maintain some sort of dignity, then. But when she’s up, she doesn’t run, doesn't fight, doesn't even complain. She simply stands at limp attention, her eyes burning aching holes into his, and he knows now that she is broken. Well and truly _shattered_ , head slumped with a short messy mop of once-radiant hair.

_Now_ he can mold her. _Now_ he can light the Gadyuka's fire for the right cause. _Finally_. She's his.

“Come along, Vanya,” Sabal says pleasantly, working his demeanor into something more disarming, “you have earned yourself a stay in the safe house tonight. For everything you have been through.”

Vanya looks once more onto the hillsides, scanning the horizon around Banapur, and when she meets his eye again he swears he sees only resolution in hers. She must be thankful, finally.

-

No cavalries come in the night. No bombardiers or shell artillery, no storm of Royal Guard spilling from the North in search of their lost American. Banapur is as sunny and as vibrant in the morning as it ever was. The market is already rife with cheery chatter and music as Sabal takes his leisurely stride through. The Golden Path is in high spirits as news of yesterday's breakthrough has spread through the ranks overnight. They have _Paul De Pleur's daughter_ on their side. And now they know that, indeed, nobody’s coming for her.

Loyalty will come in time, but if complacency is all Sabal can get out of Vanya for now, it's good enough progress for him.

He's asked the Havildar to bring her to the market, but they're late. Not terribly so quite yet, but just enough to irk him. Just enough to make him glad he's bothered to put the hose back on his belt this morning for safekeeping.

Not a few minutes later, here comes Vanya without her escort. Her short hair has been groomed and trimmed a good deal into something almost _nice_ looking, if he was interested. She looks refreshed, bright-eyed, sunny as can be, and _what a change_ from yesterday. It's almost disarming itself. _Almost._

“Good morning!” she chirps cheerily, “sorry I'm late. I found a knife and I had to fix my hair. Thanks for getting all that shit out of it, I'd have never been able to do it all it myself.”

_What._

“I… you… are welcome?” Sabal finds himself asking more than stating, grimacing, “tardiness will not be tolerated in the future, Gadyuka. Mind that.”

If truly she _is_ going to commit to this last test of loyalty, Sabal finds himself far less apprehensive seeing her change of heart. He'd expected at least a little wilting, but certainly not this much enthusiasm, a full 180 from herself last night.

“Won't happen again, brother,” Vanya shrugs, and he twitches a little at the diminutive, “what did you need from me today? I'm _ready_ for this. After yesterday, you really opened my eyes. I slept on it, and I thought about it, and I wanna be a part of this.”

Sabal snorts. Here stands a woman who yesterday stared him down like she hated the very earth he walked on, and now she's practically panting like a dog with anticipation. Doe-eyed, tiptoed, _he can practically see her invisible tail wagging._ Kyra really can work miracles.

“Well, _sister,_ ” he has to gnash out the word, “I need you to do something all on your own today. A true test of your loyalty. Are you up for it?”

Truly, he's waiting to see that flash of something mischievous in her eye. Breath bated, holding to see that devious flicker on her features. But it never comes, not even a glimmer of it. Vanya simply smiles cheerily, and although she looks to be forcing the gesture, she _does_ look… _trustworthy_. A word he loathes to assign to her.

“Of course. Thank you for having faith in me,” the Gadyuka nods vigorously, wringing her hands, short springy coils of her hair bouncing freely in her face.

“Now, _faith_ remains to be seen. I withhold my reservations until you come back to me in one piece with your task completed, little dove.”

“Sure. Makes sense. Now come on, what am I doing today? Let's get it over with, hm?” Vanya grins, and she reaches out and _claps him on the shoulder_ like they're old pals.

And by the Gods he doesn't even flinch. Sneers a little at her hand, maybe, but he's staggered by how little he cares that she’s just touched him. Perhaps she really _is_ working some disarming spell over him too. _Or the gods have other plans for the two of them._ He bares his teeth at the thought, wanting to retch.

“Hands off,” Sabal grunts, shrugging off her touch, “you will be rescuing hostages from De Pleur's men. They are being held at a homestead not far from here. I expect you to dispatch every soldier you find at the site, and _please_ make yourself scarce. We do not want you alerting them or they will start killing their captives, do you understand?”

“Yeah, yeah, give me a rifle and I'll get ‘em,” Vanya urges impatiently, dancing on her feet now, “I can take the ATV can’t I? To get there faster?”

_Twelve of his men riddled with bullet holes near Rajgad Gulag. A good number of them injured by her rifle just as much as the mounted gun Pagan Min fired. Two of his men injured near Varshakot. One of them murdered with a single rifle round to the head._

“… _no_ , I don't think you are quite ready to be trusted with a gun,” Sabal grimaces, measuring his words, “I am sure you understand. Let alone, we need you to be _stealthy._ An automatic rifle is not _quiet_ by any means, Gadyuka. You know this.”

Vanya gawks again, slack-jawed and flustered, and _oh_ how he _still_ wants to smack that dumbstruck look off her face.

“What the fuck am I supposed to kill _armored guards_ with then?!” she retorts, “my hands? Angry words?”

Beautifully, _divinely_ on cue, Dhonu appears with a bow and quiver in his outstretched hands, sent from Kyra herself.

“I hope you know how to use a bow and arrow,” is all he says as Dhonu stuffs the weapon against her chest and gives her a hearty pat on her shoulder, then turns her away and shoves her off, “better hurry now, like you said. Return when you have released all the hostages.”

-

Sabal is just sitting down to gloss over reports for the morning _, just_ getting comfortable and reflecting on his morning prayers to Kyra, when a loud, urgent knock on the door rattles him from his introspection.

_This again, the interruptions?!_

“Come in,” he barks over his shoulder, not hiding the blatant irritation in his voice.

The handle of the door jiggles a little hesitantly before his guest enters, and he doesn’t even bother to look back to greet them. He's safe here in Banapur, the one place he doesn’t have to worry about an ambush from behind. The one place he’s not on high alert, an anxious mess wary of every footfall in his vicinity.

Whoever it is, they don't speak. Not at first, anyway. Perhaps they are simply here to use the bed, or gather some belongings. But their footsteps grow closer as he pores over the intelligence report in his hands.

“Hey Sabal.”

_“Vanya?!”_ he jumps in his seat, whipping back to look up at the leviathan of a woman standing over him.

She looks offended by his surprise, as though she's expected him to be perfectly fine with her little sneaky approach.

“Hey I finished up early, and the Havildar told me to come find you,” the Gadyuka says, shrugging her shoulders.

There's nary a scratch on her, and she hardly looks like she’s struggled at all out there in the wilderness on her own chasing down hostages and Royal Army regulars.

“Did you now? Vanya it has only been… _gods_ , less than an hour!” He challenges her, “how did you complete your task so quickly? Are all of the hostages free?”

“All four of them, yeah,” she nods, taking another few steps towards him, “sorry I scared you. I didn’t wanna interrupt your reading, but then it looked like a long report.”

Sabal grits his teeth, trying to measure his breathing again, and stands from the old wooden chair. Vanya doesn't back away when he comes to face her head-on, but for once he doesn’t want to break her down and intimidate her. Closer to her, he can see the flush in her cheeks from the exertion, and he can smell the woods on her, mossy and bitter and earthy.

“If you really did this in just short of an hour, little dove, I am… _impressed_. Truly. Good of you to step up and be efficient,” he says, if a little flatly, “but we will need to take a report from you.”

_And I_ will _send someone to follow up and count the bodies. For good measure…_

The Gadyuka nods eagerly, holding his eye contact with confidence, and holds up her hands to his face, fingers spread.

“Look, I'm not lying either. That bow wrecked my fingers, I didn’t quite know how to shoot it properly.”

True to her word, as he leans back from her hands instinctively, she bears the blisters and blemishes of an inexperienced archer. Down her left forearm is a nasty welt, one he knows from experience. She let the bowstring snap in bad form and struck her arm. Foolish, naïve girl.

“Very good Vanya but we do need to take a report. You cannot just talk your way out of it. Every brother and sister of the cause contributes their reports just like you. This is how it will be from now-"

Vanya’s hands shoot out, both at once, to rest hesitantly but insistently in his shoulders, jarring him hard enough to cut him off mid sentence. Every fiber of his being inside curls away from the touch, screams _no, no, bad!_ But he's rooted to the spot as she holds him firm under her big hands. Eyes wide, mouth open as if she's got something more to say.

“Hey, hey, I get it, I do, but I just… can we talk for a minute? Like this? Not about work stuff?” she coos, trying to sooth him, and _oh_ how he wants to shove her back and run away.

This is dangerous. _She_ is dangerous. But as her hands squeeze his shoulders lightly all Sabal can do is open his mouth and wheeze, so caught off guard by her complete change of pace.

_What is this?!_

“Oh you're not talking, I'm sorry, I must have scared you. I'm so used to being touchy-feely, you know?” she _laughs_ , blasted noise, and mercifully releases his shoulders from her too-warm grasp.

“Touchy-feely?” he finds himself muttering, “Vanya _watch yourself_.”

_I do not appreciate the sudden physicality, thank you, you are confusing me in awful ways, this was not Kyra’s plan, I do not trust you in the slightest when you get so close like that, please leave me alone for once—_

None of these words have the slightest opportunity to leave his lips, for she takes the opportunity to step in _closer_ to him. Close enough now that he can feel the heat radiating off of her, still so flushed from her hard work. Close enough now that he is painfully, _agonizingly_ aware of just how small he is in her shadow.

_“Kyra wills it,”_ she whispers, so softly he doesn't quite catch her at first.

_What?!_

So far out of left field, so uncharacteristic of an ignorant American to be uttering to him… there's no way. The Gods wouldn't… they _couldn’t_ possibly… but how could the Gadyuka know anything about Her otherwise?

“Sabal?” Vanya asks, a little louder, “did I say something? You look concerned. Hey. Hello?”

Her hand closes on his bicep as he’s helpless to gawk at her, breath stolen from him by this jarring shift in gravity. When she touches him again, is that warmth he feels spreading through him? Is this what Kyra has wanted from the start for him? Part of her divine plan? He's so far beyond responding now, just trying to process what in the _fuck_ he's feeling.

“Hey. Sabal. Wake up, brother,” she urges, giving him a shake that rattles him hard, but _still_ he cannot speak.

_Kyra save me. Is this what you want of me? Is this your plan for me? Should I be looking for something deep within myself? But I loathe her. This cannot work how you want it to…_

Her other hand reaches out again, closing on his other arm, and slowly, so slowly, she slides her palms up his shoulders. The sensation sends ripples of discomfort through him, knotting tight in his gut like licking flames of anxiety. _Bad, this is bad,_ he doesn't share in her lewd intentions. These liberties she's taking are  _too much_ , but if they're what the Gods will...  _NO._  Kyra's will be damned, there is no way he can let her ravage him, if that’s what this is, but-

_Oh. No._

Reality hits Sabal far too late, when Vanya's calloused hands close around his bare throat and fire comes alive in her eyes. He has but a mere second to realize what this is, and that _he's rightly fucked_ before she _snarls_ like a wild beast, digging her thumbs into his throat.

_No, no, gods no._

He claws helplessly at her arms, growing dizzy and delirious in moments but _still_ trying desperately to fight her. Vanya's face splits into a wide and wicked grin, exhilaration in her eyes. She's enjoying his pain, she's thrilled by this.

The world around him starts to swim as his pulse slams through his body like a ramrod, hard and forceful and thick. Trying to fight the pressure on his carotid arteries, trying to keep him awake, _trying to fight this but he—_

-

_Floor._ He's on the floor. His arm is asleep. His head is screaming. Vanya is gone.

_Vanya is gone._

_How long has he been out?_

Sabal scrambles to his feet blearily, fighting against the vertigo threatening to tip him right back over.

_Have to kill her._

_Traitor._

_Savage bitch._

The hose is still on his belt. His kukri is still in its sheath. She forgot to disarm him after she dropped him and ran.

_Oh, she'll pay. Oh, she’s fucking dead._

_“Vanya!”_ he snarls, stumbling through the safe house door and out into the blinding midday sun.

She’s probably long gone, but she can't have gone far. He can't have been out for that long. Would his men not have seen her fleeing from the safe house and _stopped_ her though?!

“Dhonu! Rajesh! _Amita!_ Fucking _anyone?!”_ He bellows, clutching at his head, but _nobody_ responds.

There's a commotion uptown, plenty of raised voices. People sprinting with heavy footfalls up the hill towards the mountain.

Perhaps they’ve all caught her and it's taken a whole village to keep the madwoman down. Or perhaps she's had enough time to start slaughtering…

“I'm here.”

_Vanya!_

She's leaning on the corner of the next building over, arms crossed, so casual as if she hasn’t just assaulted him and _fled._

Sabal breaks. Snaps in two, clean through like a branch underfoot. She's done. She's dead. She's going to pay. She's going to _suffer_. His feet are pulling him across the road in a full-tilt sprint of their own accord, hurtling straight for the Gadyuka, straight for her demise. He can't even bring himself to draw the Kukri from his belt, or the hose. No, he's going to throttle her himself with his own bare hands.

She doesn't duck, doesn’t flee. Clearly she knows what she's done wrong, and maybe she even _wants_ him to end her, rather than live a life serving the Golden Path. He's close now. So close. And she’s just grinning like mad, breathing heavy and trembling all over with some kind of excitement he's never seen before. Like she still thinks she's won, even as he throws himself into her and knocks them both to the ground in the hot sun. Even as his hands close around her throat, maybe not in quite as practiced a way as she had done. But he can learn. And any amount of force is _good, delicious_ pain he'll cause her.

_“Fuck,”_ she chokes out, sounding pained even as she grins and grins, looking like she could eat him up with one sharp bite.

She's letting him strangle her, not even trying to fight him.

“You had your freedom in your hands, Gadyuka, but now it is time to end this,” Sabal snarls, squeezing tighter around that strong neck of hers, feeling that thrill of Kyra's justice rush through him hot and bright.

Her eyes are bulging. Her face is turning such a beautiful shade of purple as he digs in, it's r _eally this easy._

_He's going to be the one to wipe her clean from this earth. His greatest triumph, his biggest accomplishment._

But then she _roars_ with a breath he didn't even know she had in her, and she pitches hard, rolling them both over and toppling him off of her. His grip on her falters, sweaty and slippery as they both are, and she sputters and coughs above him.

“Good try,” she chokes out, wheezing out a strangled laugh, _“fuck you.”_

He sees the silver thing in her hand glinting in the midday light as she swings it at him, and that sharp tip plunges into the side of his throat. He can’t even call for help, can’t even suck in a breath of much-needed oxygen before the world starts swimming. Her sneering face above him twists and bubbles and melts into nothing as his energy leaves him like a tidal wave, and he's _tired, so tired._

_So tired._


	19. Kyra's Will

_Meet me in Banapur in an hour. Please hurry, please be safe. If all goes well, he’ll be crumpled at my feet when you get there. I love you._

_I love you..._

Pagan had dragged Ajay along on his bum ankle to follow Vanya when he saw her going _alone_ to a homestead outside the village. Bless the boy, he’d followed along at the best speed he could manage and did what he could to help Vanya pick off _his own men_ from the cover of the forest for the sake of getting her back to Banapur quicker. For the sake of earning her that good reputation. But he couldn’t help but to run to her when everyone had been freed and the hostages had fled back to their homes. He couldn’t help but to tangle his fingers in her new wild mop of bobbed hair and kiss her like she was the oxygen he needed to survive.

It had killed him to have to pull away so quickly, but if by chance she was followed or seen, all three of them were as good as dead. And so, she herself had pushed so softly on his chest to separate them, pain in her eyes, but eagerness on her face. And so, they’d set this plan in motion. All that was left to do was to trail far enough behind her to avoid suspicion, take up residence somewhere just outside Banapur, up in the tree cover, and wait.

-

And here they are now, crouched in the bushes out of the midday sun, waiting with bated breath to hear the commotion down below that they know is coming.

Pagan hasn’t seen which house Vanya has gone into, nor can he hear much of anything over the pleasant chatter of the market they’re near. Things are eerily still, all things considered, and he can’t help but think maybe she’s in trouble down there. Maybe Sabal has known all along that she spent her long afternoon with him in the bell tower, easing her troubles away kiss by kiss, touch by touch until she had the courage to come back here to the lion’s den. Or maybe she’s afraid, too fearful of him to make that final move that will spring the trap shut on him. But then--

_But then!_

There’s his Gadyuka, his frantic, sturdy creature, scrambling from a building far off on the other side of town, waving her arms wildly in the air to catch his attention. As if he hadn’t noticed the moment he caught sight of that fluffy bob of curls – hate them as she may. Even now, even in this, his heart still clenches at the sight of her. So strong, so graceful, so _courageous_ – more courageous than he’d be right now, down there in the village scrambling for her freedom.

And _fuck_ it kills him to watch her, alone, _so_ _alone_ and defenseless. She has nothing but that syringe on her, her only form of protection should things go astray.

But she’s still waving, still trying to get his attention. She must not be able to see him where he’s crouched. So it’s time to get this show on the road.

There’s a crowd gathered at the marketplace, most of them engaged in chatter and trade with one another. Most of Banapur seems to be up here this morning, so perhaps there’s been a good harvest recently. In any case, this has worked out _perfectly_ in his favor.

Pagan lines up a shot down the sights of his rifle as Ajay beside him does the same, both of them counting off in their heads as they’ve planned. He fires off first, landing a bullet in the dirt yards away from the crowd. The rapport of his rifle echoes out over the town, but it’s exactly as he’s hoped. Civilians jump and tense, startled but not _scared_ by the stray bullet hailing from the hillside. Ajay squeezes the trigger next, and a basket of fruit splatters in a pulp on a market stand, leaving a hole clear through to the other side.

This time, people scatter. For good measure, the both of them chase their heels with shot after shot, careful not to get _too close_ to anyone. Ajay made him promise he wouldn’t take any risky shots, and damned if he isn’t going to hold true to that today.

Up to the hillside they go, scrambling into the trees like frightened bharal and shuttering themselves in their homes, and he can see Vanya take her chance to scramble off away from the building she left Sabal in, the door there still wide open. Everything is going beautifully as planned. The streets are clear, even if Banapur will soon be buzzing with angry denim jackets like furious hornets, searching for the snipers in the trees. They won’t find any trace of the King or Ajay Ghale here, _no_. By the time those lumbering rebels poke their heads out of their dens, hopefully Sabal will already be dead in the dirt and Vanya will be safe in his arms.

“Now we wait some more,” Ajay murmurs beside him, “she better hurry the fuck up. We’ve officially poked the bear.”

“Now, my boy, Vanya has done her job and done it well. Obviously Sabal isn’t scrambling on her coattails, so he must be unconscious in there. I would love to have seen the look on that fucker’s face, Ajay,” Pagan sighs, crouching back down in the brush and slinging his rifle back over his shoulders, “having been under those hands myself while I was _interested_ in the woman, I can only imagine how horrified he must have been for how terribly he must hate her!”

He can feel the sidelong look of abject concern that Ghale throws his way, but he shrugs it off with a cheery smile and a wave of his hand. Some things are better left unsaid, especially if they cause such amusing faces. Let Ajay question everything about his sex life if he wants to, it’s a miracle he even _has_ one again, _bless that beautiful woman_.

On that thought, he lifts his gaze back to the town to see Vanya slink around the corner of a building, resting with her back to them now, but clearly in view.

“Do you have sights on her?” Ajay asks quietly when he must see him perking up considerably, “what about Sabal?”

“No, no... not yet at least. But I—oh, _oh_ , there he is, Ajay, look alive. He wasn’t out for long at all,” Pagan gasps, watching that unmistakable denim jacket emerge into the sunlight.

Sabal is facing them head-on, clutching at his head and hanging onto the door frame for dear life as he bellows out into the empty village streets for help. His face is screwed up tight with wild consternation, his crop of undercut hair strewn in messy strands in his face that he doesn’t bother to swipe away. He’s terribly out of sorts. _Perfect_. The commotion uptown draws his attention away for a moment as he gathers his bearings, and then he sees her.

She must have said something to him, for how quickly he snaps to attention and stares her down. And just like that he’s dissolving into an animalistic rage, hauling off across the dirt road and closing the distance between them _fast_. Pagan keens, terribly concerned that Vanya isn’t moving an inch. She should be fleeing, bracing to defend herself, but she’s just standing there with her arms still crossed, waiting for the impact. Ajay must hear him, for soon the boy is crouched beside him, a firm hand on his shoulder.

“She’ll be alright, I know she will,” Ajay mutters, giving him a little encouraging squeeze that sucks the breath right out of him, _bless the boy_.

“Who is that?!” he blurts as his eye catches a young girl sprinting down a side street, back from the market where everyone had dispersed.

She’s veering right for Sabal and Vanya, careening right into the path of danger, kicking up dust behind her on her fast little feet.

_“Bhadra,”_ Ajay groans, his hand slipping from Pagan’s shoulder, and he scrubs his hands over his face, “fuck. This is bad. What's she doing down there?!”

And it’s then that Pagan realizes who he’s looking at, just that he hasn’t ever seen her from behind. In all his dossiers and intelligence reports, he’s only ever seen pictures of her face. The young Tarun Matara, or she would be if Sabal had any say in the laws of the land here. Her parents were killed by his own men, some years ago, another casualty in this embittered civil war that Kyrat can’t ever seem to claw its way out of.

By the time he looks back to his lover to check on her, _she’s down_. Sabal’s filthy hands are wrapped tight around her throat, throttling her for all she’s worth, and _Vanya isn’t fighting back._

_What are you doing?!_

Ajay grasps the collar of his fatigues and hauls him back just as he goes to lunge forward, just as little Bhadra shrieks in horror at what she sees. Sabal doesn’t even look up, like he hasn’t even heard the poor thing’s cry, but _none of this matters if he can’t get the fuck down there, Vanya hang on please!_

“Pagan, calm down,” Ghale hisses in his ear, holding him firm even as he struggles against his grasp, “Don’t fucking go yet. She’s fine, look, _look at her hands.”_

And he does, as he sucks in a deep breath and tries to calm the overflowing well of desperation sucker-punching him in the chest. Even as she’s being strangled somewhat ineffectively, Vanya is fiddling in her pockets, and she soon produces that glittering silver syringe without Sabal ever even noticing. _Clever girl_. Bhadra is beside herself, poor thing, inconsolable at whatever she’s witnessing, but seemingly rooted to the spot where she stands. And with a mighty roar, the Gadyuka comes to life suddenly beneath Sabal’s vice-like grasp, tossing them both over in the dirt.

Pagan calls out with her, cheering her on from the hilltop, and the way she’s facing, _she looks up at him_ , grinning wide and wild before she looks right back down at Sabal, hungry and furious. In one wide swing she’s got the syringe jammed in his neck, and in a matter of seconds his arms fall limp on either side of him, his legs slack, head slumped back.

_It’s time to move._

Now, mercifully, Ajay shoves him up onto his feet, staggering up himself on his aching ankle.

“Go, I’ll make my way down. You got this,” the boy urges, fire in his eyes, “hurry up!”

He needn’t say more.

He’s scrambling on his ass and heels down the steep hillside the moment Ajay lets him loose, his rifle slung over his back and his Beretta still on his hip.

_Coming for you, Vanya, fucking finally, I’m here. It’s over, you’re safe._

Pagan hits the ground running on the outskirts of town, vaulting up over a wooden fence and hauling ass into town as fast as his legs will carry him. Everything is quiet, the villagers are still mercifully hiding in the trees and in their homes. She’s not far from where he’s landed, this much he knows, if only because he can hear her still coughing and sputtering to catch her breath. He can hear Bhadra’s fast little footsteps too, scuffling in the dirt. He careens around a corner, edging down an alleyway, and collides hard with a small body, sending both of them scrambling backwards in shock.

“Shitfuck, _fuck,_ ” he chokes, catching his bearings, and when he orients himself again,  _there’s Bhadra_ , flat on her backside in the street with eyes wide as saucers.

The young girl sucks in a fearful breath, tears brimming in her eyes, and Pagan wilts, Sabal be damned. She looks rightly horrified, so rattled by the scuffle she witnessed and probably by the fucking gunshots he and Ajay had scattered off into the village.

“Oh, _oh_ , I’m so sorry,” he croons, dropping to his knees in front of her, “Listen, I’m going to make things better, alright? I’m here to help, I promise, _oh, you poor thing.”_

For all his promises, all his urgent blurting, trying to console the shaken teen, she doesn’t seem to be assuaged in the slightest. She’s rigid with fear, even kicking back some in the dirt to put space between them, and for whatever reason this stings at his heart in a way that it very much shouldn’t. Why should he care how this little rebel girl feels about his intents? Why should it matter when she’s already on the wrong side of things anyhow?

But then he realizes that she’s not staring at the King of Kyrat, or at least Bhadra doesn’t realize she is. Here he is, promising her he’s going to help her, swearing fealty to this frightened fifteen-year-old, wearing Royal Army fatigues and a crimson beret to hide his blond hair.

“H-help... _help!”_ Bhadra finally musters up enough courage to cry out, trying to scramble to her feet, and Pagan panics.

He throws up his hands, heart thundering in his chest, and _god_ how he wants to console her somehow.

“Look, please, calm down Bhadra, _yes_ that’s right I know your name. I’m a friend of Ajay Ghale’s. He’s here too. Look, I’m going to take my rifle off and set it over here, alright?” he says slowly, soothingly, talking her through every twitch of his hands as she watches him warily.

“Ajay Ghale?” she whispers, lips trembling, “Where is he? Who are you? I’m... I’m scared, Sabal was...”

Pagan whimpers as he sets the gun down, scooting it away from him far enough out of reach that she visibly relaxes, and he knows he has time before that syringe wears off. Vanya will keep hold on things, _he has time._ When he’s taken his pistol slowly out of its holster and slid it to rest with the rifle, he tugs the beret on his head off, setting it at his knees. Bhadra’s eyes go wide as she stares hard at his tousled hair, putting the puzzle pieces together.

“Pagan Min...” the girl hisses, and he nods firmly in confirmation.

“Yes, yes, not so scary in the flesh am I? I’m not going to hurt you, Bhadra. I’m not so much the monster the rest of the country makes me out to be. Ajay is on his way down the hill, and _I_ am on my way to make _very sure_ that Sabal can’t hurt you, or anyone you trust or love, ever again. Do you trust me?” he asks, extending his hand to her, throat tight with worry.

Bhadra swallows hard, getting up onto her knees and sitting back on her feet. She eyes his hand skeptically for a long, hard moment, biting at her chapped lip deep in thought. He keeps his hand still, held aloft in the air until he’s gotten an answer out of her, for she may still open up yet. And still he questions why he’s even bothering, although the answer is becoming more apparent as he looks her in the eye.

Her old soul greets his like a warm handshake, even behind the wary disposition she wears like a mask. Photos haven’t done her justice, not for the staggering intelligence behind those glassy green eyes. He’s never been a superstitious man, and he’s never put his lot in with religion, but this little Tarun Matara... _she knows him._ Not just that she recognizes the King for all the portraits of Eric plastered around the country, or his face on the damn money, _no_ , she _knows him_. If those old tales were ever true, if what Mohan had said to him once held a candle to a notion of truth then... somewhere in her is Ishwari. Burning bright, hand in hand with each Tarun Matara before them both, all of them _her, now._

“I trust you,” Bhadra says with finality, and that wisdom in her voice rattles him to his very core.

_Oh, she knows._

Before he can reach out and crush her to his chest like he inexplicably needs to do for his own self-preservation, Bhadra is up on her feet and finally shaking his hand firmly. It’s that shake that pulls himself up off the ground, and he picks up his beret to perch right back on his head again. Better safe than sorry.

“Where is Ajay?” she asks softly, and that fear is back in her voice again as whatever rose to greet him has receded, “Can I go to him?”

“Just off the way I came, he should be coming round the hillside any moment,” Pagan nods, “I’m sure he’ll love to see you.”

“Be safe,” she utters as she skitters off, and in moments she’s out of sight and off towards the edge of town.

Off he goes, slinging his rifle back over his shoulders and holstering his Beretta, and just around the bend on the other side of the same building is the main event, waiting just for him. Sabal is still spread-eagle in the dirt, out like a light and looking so peacefully serene. _How quaint_.

_“Pagan!”_ Vanya gasps, stumbling to her feet, but he barely hears her.

Can’t hear her, really, not through the deafening roar of fury that’s quickly overtaking him, narrowing his vision down to that tiny little pinpoint. Honed in on that loop of _fucking hose_ hanging haphazardly from his belt. On display proudly for the world to see, and within convenient reach should the Gadyuka step out of line.

_No, no, NO._

“Vanya, stay back,” he snarls, sounding so unlike himself, feeling a strange old savagery rise up in him that he hasn’t felt since...since _Lakshmana._

Since Sabal’s very idol, his _hero_ Mohan stole his little baby girl away in the middle of the night with a bullet to her precious little head and robbed him of everything he’d ever loved with the flash of a muzzle, the squeeze of a trigger. Since he stumbled into her nursery to find that little, _beautiful_ daughter of his dead, lifeless, _gone from the world,_ and with her life, his sanity. With her life, his resolve, opening a floodgate of this very same _sickening_ rage that's eating him alive now here, today, for the first time in two decades.

“Why?” he hears Vanya ask, stumbling after him as he closes the distance between him and the _rot_ in the dirt.

“ _Why?!_ You have to ask me why?! Vanya, _Vanya_...” Pagan cries, whipping back to meet her startled gaze, but he can’t seem to see her face, “I’m going to kill him. I’m going to grind his bones into the dirt and make him pay for what he’s done to you. For what he’s done to Ajay. To Bhadra. To-… Vanya, _go_. Go find Ajay.”

But she doesn’t move, standing there so sturdy and confident like she’s not afraid.

_She can’t see this side of him. Not now. Not when he knows what’s coming._

“Fucking go, I said! Damnit girl!” he roars, swiping at her, and it’s enough to startle her thoroughly.

He doesn’t stay to watch her shrink into the shadows, doesn’t even look behind him to check once he’s turned back to Sabal, for that blissful, drugged face is the only thing he can see. So calm, so unaware, drifting away on a sea of good dreams and a lovely high. Blindly, Pagan stumbles to him and _over_ him, and drops to sit squarely on his chest, his arms pinned against his body beneath his thighs, and he’s positively vibrating with tense anticipation. Waiting to spring on his prey like a hungry tiger, starving for its next kill. He has just enough clarity to pull the kukri from Sabal’s belt, and considers just plunging it into the man’s sternum while he sleeps, but _that wouldn’t be any fun, would it?_

With a careless toss, he sends the blade clattering away across the road, far from any prying hands. Then, oh, _then_ he feels it, the other weapon he’s yet to disarm, almost burning the inside of his shin where it’s resting, and oh, this will do _nicely_...

Pagan draws back the hand that isn’t holding tight to his newfound weapon and slaps Sabal hard across his scarred face, but only succeeds in pitching his head to the side. He’s still breathing heavily in his sleep, calm as can be. _Jesus Christ_ those Englishmen know how to make a proper tranquilizer...

A sternal rub does the trick, quick and easy, and in moments Sabal is gasping hard for breath like a fish out of water, keening like a kicked puppy. He blinks and squints and wobbles his head to and fro, trying to focus in on the world around him as he fights to catch up with the drugs bogging him down. And when he finally steadies his gaze up at Pagan, that pure unadulterated thrill rushes through him like a hot surge of electricity, rippling through his spine with a shiver.

“Good morning, Sabal,” he finds himself purring, so saccharine sweet and far too tender for the tone to be voluntarily produced.

_“Pagan?!”_ Sabal stammers, eyes growing ever-wider with dawning realization.

_Yes, very clever! How observant... fucking imbecile._

In lieu of an answer, Pagan finally lifts his hand into view, dangling the coil of hose for him to observe with his bleary half-asleep gaze. And _oh_ how Sabal hisses, sucking in a fast hard breath like he knows exactly what’s coming. And _oh_ how fucking beautiful that satisfaction feels sitting right behind his ribcage, thrumming through him like divine justice.

He can feel the weight of it hefted in his hand, heavy and hard and reinforced behind the rubber with coils of wire. A fucking _radiator_ hose of all things, if not a terribly long one piecemealed together somehow. And as he closes his eyes for a sweet, blissful moment of serenity, he can see it cutting across that pale, freckled back, leaving angry welts in its wake and breaking that strong-willed woman down into a simpering mess. A woman now fearful of this very hose, kept hostage by its mere dominating presence on Sabal’s person. He can see, can _feel_ that palpable agony twisting her up, eating her alive, withering her away with the fear that this may be her future now and always, ever bowed under the crack of this draconian thing.

“This is the hose you used to break her down, Sabal. This very same one is the one that caused those god-awful wounds on her body and soul, isn’t it?” Pagan hisses, leaning down close enough to Sabal to smell the sweat of fear on him, _“ISN’T IT?!”_

He roars loud enough to viscerally shake the man, causing him to flinch away from his face as he bellows right into his ear. Pagan’s hands are shaking _hard_ now, his shoulders are stiff and tense and _ready for this._

Sabal doesn’t answer. He looks to be biting back tears, withering away to a simpering puddle of pitiful flesh beneath him, _pathetic fuck_. And he simply can’t contain it any longer, so pent up and narrowed down and channeled right into the palm of his hand that he’s already winding up tighter than a spring--

The first crack of the hose draws squarely across his cheekbone, the flesh swelling up red and angry in its wake, and the strangled wail of his victim sends shudders through him. He’s so far gone, so far lost to his own blind rage that he’s not even thinking of killing the man any more, _no_ , he just wants to see him _suffer._

Blow after blow, slice after slice of the ragged end of the hose, he’s channeled down to that rhythmic back and forth swing, the sharp _thwack_ of the rubber on that steadily swelling face, on his throat, on his shoulders. Anywhere he can damn well reach, until the impersonal nature of the hose feels too detached from him. He can’t even hear the world around him as he pitches the hose off into the dirt and resorts to punching him squarely in the face now. He can’t even _see_ Sabal, save for those inches of bloodied flesh he connects his fists with, his breathing ragged, his head pounding.

This is much better, to connect with him blow by blow with nothing but skin on skin, even as it tears his knuckles apart for how carelessly he’s pounding him into the dirt. He’s cut his flesh on worse than teeth and cheekbones before, some split knuckles are nothing for the unbridled satisfaction of what he’s doing, and why he’s doing it.

_This is for Ajay. For the fear, for the paranoia, for the hell you put him through. For the long months he spent wailing in fear at every new sound in the palace, every sudden movement in his peripheral. For the cold, hard edge in his eyes even now when he hears your fucking name, has to read report after report about your manipulative games. For taking him from me, trying to turn him against me._

Sabal sputters beneath him, trying to croak out a plea for mercy, but it falls on deaf ears.

_This is for Vanya. For every fucking welt and laceration you put on her back. For the gun you held to her head while three were held to mine, hauling her away like a hunter with his kill. For starving her down to near skin and bones. For breaking her down, mind, body, and soul, like she’s worth nothing at all when she means the world to me. For ever daring to touch her, ever thinking you could use her as a weapon against me._

There’s commotion in the alley behind him, footsteps thudding in the dirt, but not in a hurry. This much he hears, and his instincts deem that they’re not a threat.

_This is for Ishwari, and for our baby girl. For glorifying that cunt of a man you hail as a hero. For embodying Mohan as though you know what he was like. As though you know the truth. For those two precious years we got together, fleeting and beautiful and incredible. For the birthdays Lakshmana will never have. For the daughter I never got to hold again after laying her on the funeral pyre._

_For Lakshmana._

Her little, soft face lights up his vision, so crystal clear for such a staggering moment that he halts in his tracks. Precious little baby girl, laughing like a melody on the wind, and Ishwari’s hand is settled softly on his shoulder.

_No, not Ishwari’s._

_Vanya’s._

_“Pagan!”_ he hears her cry from the darkness, and with a shuddering gasp he snaps back to reality, “Pagan _stop_ you’re going to-… you’ve gone fucking mad!”

Sabal is _not dead_. Not yet. In fact, he’s still awake, but that much is only evident because of the ungodly gurgling he continues to make, gasping for rattling breaths and blubbering out pathetically with every exhale. He stopped struggling long ago, not long after the first few blows with that fucking hose.

Vanya tugs on his shoulder, harder this time, and like gravity itself has shifted Pagan topples off of Sabal and _onto her_ , caving in on himself with a sob. Her embrace is like a life jacket, wrapping warm and soft and sturdy around him as his face finds its way to bury in her shoulder.

“She’s gone, god she’s gone,” he wheezes, grasping at every handful of her shirt he can clutch, willing the ugly beast inside him to keel over and _die_ already so he can take a god-damn breath of fresh air again.

All he can see with his eyes shut are those beautiful, precious people he loves, and has loved. Each and every fucking one of those precious few humans, all flickering over his eyelids like a slideshow on high speed, and it burns to watch, aches to feel their presence here with him. Vanya runs her hands through his hair, beret be damned, probably lost in the scuffle, and wraps herself around him like a guardian angel. Anchoring him to the here and now, slowly bringing him back until he’s able to finally, _mercifully_ , suck in a shuddering, hard breath.

“Pagan, hey. _Hey_ , Ajay is here now. It’s alright, you’re fine. I love you,” she whispers soothingly, and with those last three words he can finally open his eyes to the world again.

_Ajay. Ajay is here._

_Oh, bless that damned boy!_

All at once Pagan is thrown for a loop, compelled to scramble to his feet with tears still in his bleary eyes, and with a renewed resolve he hauls Sabal up by the collar of his shirt and the scruff of his neck. Miraculously he can stand on his own, at least somewhat, albeit he’s _certainly not_ letting go of the damned terrorist. He’s nearly dead weight in his grasp, and already buckling at the knees again rapidly, and so they’ll make this quick.

Indeed, Ajay is standing off in the shadows of a nearby alleyway, staring at the three of them with a _hunger_ in his eyes that he’s never seen before. Like all along he’s wanted to be the one to take Sabal down fighting, and now he’s been robbed of the chance but sees the scraps for the taking. And bless the boy, he’s given himself ten times over for King and Country, and... and for _him_. For this mutual relationship they’ve worked so _fucking_ hard at over the last year to get to where they stand now. He’s put up with more bullshit, more drug-laced tirades, more life-threatening situations than Pagan can even count since coming under his wing. And it strikes him suddenly, painfully, that he’s never once _thanked him_ , not in a way that matters.

With a heft and a heave, he gets Sabal moving across the road, dragging him through his own blood in the dirt and leading him urgently to Ajay where he pitches him at his feet. Sabal topples into the dirt and comes to rest unceremoniously on his hands and knees, blind to the world for how broken his face is, how swollen his eyes are. Ajay’s face hardlines as he swallows hard, sucking in a breath, and his fingers twitch eagerly over the handle of his own kukri at his belt.

“Ajay,” Pagan says clearly, so that Sabal will understand just who he’s been offered up to, “A gift for you. Given with my deepest, sincere gratitude.”

The boy doesn’t need to say a word, his expression says it all, and as he turns away he hears Sabal keen, a wordless, jumbled plea for mercy. His fate rests in Ghale’s hands now, _as it should_.

Vanya is on her feet and waiting for him now, arms wide open for him, a wild grin on her face that’s terribly infectious. He stumbles to her on tired legs, his head pounding, and _god_ her embrace soothes everything away with a squeeze of her arms, a press of her lips to his forehead.

“Come on, _dusha,_ let’s go home,” she says, voice as soft as velvet in his ear as she lets him cling to her for as long as he needs, “we’re safe.”

But before he can let her lead him away, a thought strikes him. They’re standing in the middle of Banapur, deep in the lion’s den, _unscathed_.

_“...Where is everyone?”_ he blurts, pulling away from her to look around, anxiety in his chest.

Vanya simply smiles wider, holding him steady by the shoulders, a glitter in her eye.

“Bhadra really likes you,” is all she says, “she bought us some time. Now come on. I just want to sleep for _fucking ever_.”

_Home. They’re finally going home._


	20. Stay

“This way, dear heart.”

Vanya follows along behind Pagan through the now-familiar maze of the palace, breathing in every surreal moment of her homecoming. Every vase, every tapestry, the hustle and bustle of the staff sweeping through on their daily routine, the heavy incense lingering in the air, it's all _home_ now. It hasn't even been two weeks, yet, but it feels like she's been gone for months for how overwhelmingly relieving this feels, just to be back within these walls. And now, she's here with _him_.

He holds onto her hand so tightly as he leads her along, squeezing like he might think she’ll slip away again and disappear if for some reason he lets her go. It should hurt, and really she should reassure him, but after everything that's happened today, after how far he lost himself there on the street in Banapur, she gives him a pass.

She can smell his apartments before they even turn down the hallway, that vetiver and jasmine she's been breathing in through his shirt all this time since yesterday. That smell of _him_. But then that must mean this is their final destination, and the anticipation of it weighs almost as heavily on her as her uncertainty.

“Wait, we're going in… _your_ room?” she ekes out, tugging back on his hand just a little, begging him to hesitate.

Pagan chuckles, a rumbling, giddy, _beautiful_ noise so unbefitting of this moment, of how exhausted and dour and ragged they both should be, and he stops with her just around the corner. He gives her hand a squeeze, offering her strength and solidarity even as his ensuing smile crinkles up the corners of his eyes with such bemusement in them.

“And why wouldn't we?” he asks playfully, tilting his head just so.

Truthfully, she can’t find a proper answer to his question. Not one that'll really even answer her own question, either. It's not as though she doesn’t _want_ to join him here in his most sacred sanctum. Merely, it's the fact that she’s being given the privilege at all that startles her. Perhaps she just assumed that they'd start off with more boundaries, that she'd have to work to earn access to this special place of his.

But as Pagan leads her forward again, humming pleasantly to himself, and keys in the password at the pad beneath the doorknob, Vanya realizes just how silly those thoughts are. No, she earned the privilege a long time ago. Maybe even as early as that first night in Paul's office. The moment he told her he loved her.

“I'll get the code to the door changed to something you’ll remember,” he says as he turns the handle and pushes it open, “and you can have a grand tour of the place later, if you’re up for the shortest walk-around of your life. But right now, this very second, I _need_ a shower. What do you say? Join me?”

“Last time you asked me that we were on our way out of Paul's house. Remember?” she snorts, following behind him through the door and pulling it shut behind her.

He leads her forth with such urgent speed, the whole apartment going by in a blur, and she's so focused in on the prospect of hot water, soap, _shampoo,_ that naught much else matters anyhow. The bathroom is as expansive as she's expected, and _god_ that bath tub looks two sizes too big even for the two of them. She makes a mental note to get herself in it at her soonest convenience.

Pagan fiddles with the shower, leaned halfway into the thing to get the water flowing and the temperature right, and Vanya leans herself against the wall nearby to watch him. This strange, absurdly domestic situation leaves her just as anxious as it does comforted, for she's still wedged somewhat firmly in the mindset that the world is out to get her. Or and at least, _some_ of the world out there, outside these palace walls. The King is humming pleasantly to himself as he bustles about the bathroom, for a moment paying no mind to her presence here in this space with him. It's entirely surreal, and god how invasive it feels. Like she's watching someone too candidly, like a fucking voyeur.

“Why don't you get yourself undressed, _dusha?”_ she hears him ask over his shoulder as she tries to look anywhere else but at him, “the water is _perfect._ I like mine hot. Scalds away the grime.”

There's an unopened container of hair bleach on the counter of the sink, right next to the makeup she hasn't seen him wear since Paul's fete. No garbage in the wastebasket, every surface pristinely clean.

“Vanya?” Pagan asks when she doesn't respons, and oh, he's undressed, staring right at her, arms crossed in concern.

_Why does this feel too new? Haven't we already said I love you?_

She can't muster up a response made of any intelligent words, for what is there to say? But she can afford him a curt nod as she averts her eyes again, taking a shaky breath.

“Oh, are you alright? What's wrong? World crashing down on you?” he chuckles, but she knows enough of him to hear the underlying concern in his voice, “did I… did I upset you? With the yelling, in the village? I'm terribly sorry. Are you unwell? Talk to me. I need to hear your voice.”

The pain in those last words brings her right back to reality like a snapped rubber band, and with a hard shake of her head to rattle the fog loose, she finally meets his eye.

“Yeah, I'm fine. I'll be fine,” Vanya sighs, offering him the best smile she can, “just adjusting to the sudden changes, you know? Feels weird to be going right back to normal after so much has happened over the last two weeks. I don't know how you do it.”

Pagan raises an eyebrow at her with incredulity, cocking his head, and his face splits into a wide grin as he laughs and laughs. Clutching at his stomach, wiping at his eyes, letting loose and nearly doubling over with the force of his fit. He pitches forward, melting into her and pressing her against the wall as he wraps his arms around her dramatically and buries his face in her shoulder. Still snickering, muffled by her shirt, filling her chest with the hearty rumbles of his laugh as he squeezes her tight to him like she's his anchor to reality.

“What's so funny?” she sighs in defeat, finding her arms winding around his broad shoulders, clutching at him as he straightens up to look her in the face.

“I wish I could tell you I have some grand secret to crisis management, dear heart, but the truth of the matter is that I have _no idea_ ,” he snorts, shaking his head, “But it's better this way, clinging to whatever giddy sanity I have left like it matters much if I do. Had I not this precious woman to follow me in here and hold me tight, I very well may have found myself slamming rails of coke off the edge of the bathtub to push myself through to next week.”

Vanya's face must screw up, as his does too, not exactly looking like he regrets what he's said, but-

“And there you have it, Vanya,” Pagan offers, rather awkwardly, “ _me._ Some of me, anyhow.”

“You didn't sneak that past me on the airplane when you took a hit,” she points out, ruffling his hair and pushing him softly away so she can get herself properly undressed, “If you think that shit is gonna deter me, you're gonna have to try harder.”

With this, Pagan wilts visibly. He does a good job of trying to keep himself together, looking chipper as ever as he pads into the hot spray of the shower, but there’s a heavy weight on his shoulders. It's difficult to acknowledge that this time _she_ has placed it there, but now there's nothing to be done about it. Now is the time for decompressing, for connecting, for _adjusting_. So much change in such a short time has left her reeling, gasping for breath now that things have finally come to a screeching, sudden halt. Here, in a hot shower standing beside the King of Kyrat, of all places.

And _that's_ something too, Vanya realizes; that she's in a place she really isn’t fit for, here in the palace. But that burning fire in Pagan's eyes when she meets them tells her otherwise, as he reaches out to her, suddenly so gentle, so hesitant, and pulls her under the spray with him. The soothing burn of the water on her aching, shaky muscles does much the same as the warm brush of his lips against hers as he does his damnedest to kiss away that distant stare on her face.

“I know you have a lot to think about, do you want to talk about any of it?” he asks when they part, holding her by the waist, clutching her to his strong body.

“Honestly? No, not right now. Can we just… can we forget about everything right now?” Vanya huffs, resting her forehead on his shoulder and letting the hot water soothe her back, letting Pagan's fingertips worry tender circles into her sore muscles.

“I should like nothing less than that,” he agrees softly.

They _should_ get clean first and foremost, really they should, but the way he feels against her, pressed up against her skin-to-skin, soft and velvet and _sturdy_ … It's not hard for other thoughts to fill the comfortably blank spaces in her mind where she's pushed out all her other doubts for now. Pagan's hands slow to a stop resting on her lower back and she feels his body sag a little against her, his chest rising and falling with slow, deep breaths. And when she cranes her head back to peep at him, his eyes are half-lidded already, blearily sleepy.

_Maybe now isn't the time_.

But then as she shifts away from him, Pagan stirs with a snuffle, stiffening up, and that mischievous little twinkle in his eye she's come to _live for_ is shining bright.

“You sleepy, _your majesty?”_ Vanya chides, stepping out of the shower spray to guide him under it, “let's get cleaned up before you pass out on me, hmm?”

“Oh bugger that _majesty_ bullshit,” he crinkles up his nose, leaning past her to snatch up a bottle of soap, “I detest it. And _you_ least of all should be showing me deference…”

“Sorry, sorry, just not used to hanging out with Kings, you know?”

“Oh, I'm the first? I'm terribly flattered,” he snorts as he guides her to turn around, “what an insufferable dictator you've chosen to commiserate with, bah!”

She plants her hands on the cool glass panel, looking out through the foggy thing at the bright glow of the bathroom lights, the blurred shapes of the other furniture in the room. Pagan sidles close to her, not quite leaning up against her, and works a gentle lather of soap into her slowly healing back with a feather light touch. A few days ago this would have been agony, but now, gentle as he is, it's almost relieving to feel his tender hands on her here. No more whippings, no more beatings, no more scrambling up death-defying ledges in a rickety old bell tower. Just comfort, just love, and the best damn back rub she's ever gotten. If she can call it that.

“You're far from insufferable,” she murmurs as she watches his soapy hands glide down her sides and trail up her ribcage, “a bit of an ass maybe, with a flair for the dramatic, and the most frightening disposition for misplaced cheeriness I think I’ve ever seen, but… not insufferable.”

“That's the nicest thing you’ve said about me!”

“You didn’t think it was kind of me to call your dick cute?”

Pagan _whuffs_ as if he's been elbowed in the gut, and he snags her close, squeezing her tight from behind. Trapping her against the glass, arms crossed around her midsection in a firm hold. She can feel his body shaking with the force of a laugh he's trying notably hard to hold in, and all it takes is a frustrated little grumble from her to tip him over the edge into laughter once again.

“I had almost forgotten about that,” he snickers into her back, “you _fucking_ viper.”

“You wouldn't expect any less from me, even now,” she grins, easing back into his embrace as he loosens his arms.

It’s so easy to let loose and laugh a little, to let the world dissolve away around her as he sways with her in his arms, pressed back against his chest. It's so easy to love him when he knows just how to wash away her troubles down the shower drain under their feet. Nothing else matters but _him_ right now, here in the steam, soaped up and delirious, tired and weary.

“I wouldn't, and I don’t, _dusha_ ,” Pagan murmurs, so close to her ear as he tugs her back under the falling water again, and she shudders hard at these wonderful sensations.

“Your turn. Come on. Face the wall,” she says before they can get too carried away, “I'm sure you’re twice as sore as I am. You got a good workout.”

Pagan puts up no complaints, eagerly bracing himself against the wall and he melts beneath her fingertips as she works them into his muscles, up and down his back. The contented murmurs he offers up into the wall are like music to her ears, reminding her that after everything she's done, she can still make someone happy. Her hands, that have caused pain to others, willingly and readily, can still bring joy and relief.

“Ah… a little to the left, _yes_ right there,” he groans raucously, and Vanya rolls her eyes, working her knuckles into a particularly painful knot on his shoulder.

Tired of back massages, she smooths her hands around his stomach and presses close to him, spooning up against the long lines of his back. They fit perfectly like this. She tucks her chin over his shoulder, nuzzling into his cheek, and looks down at her arms wrapped around him, and beyond that, _oh-_

_Oh._

“You are a strange, strange man,” Vanya purrs, grinning wide as she teases him, “a back massage has you aroused now? Pagan…”

“Can you blame me in the slightest?” he whispers, and removes one arm from the wall to grasp at one of her hands intently, “it's not like I've had the privilege of sharing a shower with anyone but myself for the last decade or two. Let alone with a tall young lady who tells me she loves me and voluntarily puts up with my bullshit.”

All this time he’s prattling on, he seems to be trying to guide her hand south, but he doesn’t ever quite push her far enough. Damned if she’s not willing to touch him regardless, but with his grasp as tight around her hand as it is, he’s in control of where it's going. It's almost as though he can't bring himself to ask for it, not even this way. Does he think he doesn’t deserve it?

“You know if you stop hover-handing me over your stomach I’d like to take care of that,” she says finally, tired of his dawdling, and he stiffens immediately, dropping his hand to his side, “ _good_. Now relax.”

She trails her fingertips delicately over the smooth skin of his belly, feeling him heave with anxious breaths. Not wanting to torture him too terribly, she finally, mercifully reaches down to wrap her hand around him, drawing a hard shiver from him in response. From where she’s standing, cradled up behind him, she can see everything she's doing, looking down and watching her fingers curled around his cock.

“You want this?” she whispers, holding stock still until he’s practically shaking with anticipation.

“Please,” Pagan whimpers, oh so quietly, turning his head to nuzzle his nose into her cheek, “Vanya. _Please_.”

Wasting not a second more, she gives him a languid tug, drawing a shuddering sigh from his lips that bites off in a strangled croon as she twists her wrist just so. He's struggling with his own self restraint as she strokes heat into him. She can feel his whole body tensing up as her other hand trails up and over his chest. As terribly as he wants this, he's not letting himself go.

“Relax,” she whispers as he keens in her ear, “I want you to relax. Let your guard down. Why are you so tense? Take what you want, love.”

“Vanya I-…” he hesitates, and in retaliation she draws her hand away from him, earning her a growl of disappointment, “ _Christ_ , girl, you're maddening.”

She should really punish him for that, but she can hear the lighthearted edge to his voice. Vanya rewards his subtle compliance, reaching down to stroke him again, and the change is almost immediate. Pagan huffs, rutting hard into her hand without a second thought, and she follows him back with a squeeze, pressing kisses and tender lovebites up his shower-dewed shoulder.

“You're the maddening one, fucking my hand like you haven't been touched in ages. Doing _things_ to my heart, to my head…” she retorts, blowing soft breaths in his ear.

He stiffens in response, shoulders tensing as he braces against the wall and dips his head forward to watch her hand, to watch what they're doing. His hips are rocking in earnest now, sliding up a crescendo in his rhythm until he's feverish, begging for more with unintelligible syllables.

“Tell me, Pagan. Let me hear it,” Vanya whispers, nibbling along the slope of his nape until she finds that tender spot that stands his hair on end.

“ _Fuck_ , I’m close,” he chokes out, stuttering out a cry as she bites down on him, melting him against her.

Suddenly, sharply, Pagan yelps out, choking on a sob as his hips buck forward and he tumbles over the edge into bliss, as though it sprung on him too suddenly to expect. She can't help but to close her eyes right there with him, nuzzling her face into his shoulder and stroking him through his pleasure as he makes a mess of her hand and the shower wall.

“That's it, love, so good,” she whispers against his goosebumped flesh, not pulling away until his knees start to buckle and he slumps back against her.

“ _Christ_ ,” he cusses, tilting his head back until he’s resting on her shoulder, his throat exposed for her wandering fingertips, “Vanya…”

When they've both collected themselves, and Pagan has gotten his mess cleaned up, Vanya turns the shower off and practically tugs him from it into the steamy bathroom. He's still bleary and a little dazed, flushed thoroughly and still giddy in his post-handjob high, and before she can make it to the shelf nearby to grab clean towels, he snatches her up. She finds herself laughing, twisting in his arms to face him as he ensnares her in his strong arms and clutches her close to his chest. This contact high is doing her wonders.

“I owe you one, _dusha_ ,” her lover whispers, running his fingers through what's left of her once-long hair, “and have I told you how much I _love_ this new ‘do of yours?”

She reaches up to pull at the ends of her hair, remembering so clearly how not more than a day ago she'd had to enlist the help of a villager who had stopped by the safehouse. How they'd sat together in silence and the woman had cleaned up what had been done to her hair by Sabal's vicious slicing. She'd left the safehouse in the morning with a chin-length mop of what used to be waist-length curls. She hasn't even seen herself in a mirror yet, at least not more than at a glance when they’d entered the bathroom. All at once these still-fresh memories throw her right back into reality, startling her for how visceral her reaction is.

“Vanya? Did I misspeak?” Pagan asks, trying to meet her eye.

She's breathing heavy, mouth agape, eyes wide. Hasn’t even realized it until he's voiced his concern.

“I-… uh. No, you didn’t. I just…” Vanya stammers, trying to find the right words to voice just how disoriented she feels, “just gave me a reality check is all. How many few hours ago, we were in Banapur. And you were there, pouncing on Sabal, and… _whipping him_ , and…”

He stiffens suddenly, inhaling sharply through his nose, but just as quickly as he’s bristled, he wilts again, pity in his eyes as his brow furrows.

“Hush love, let's not think about it. I'm not sure that I can myself at the moment. Tomorrow will be a new day, and I'm all in favor of revisiting today, tomorrow. But right now,” he pauses to press a tender kiss to her forehead, “right now I want to towel off, take you to my bed, and hold you until we both feel normal again. Can we do that?”

_Oh_ how incredible that sounds. She certainly won't argue with the prospect of curling up with him. In a fucking _bed_ , too, for the first time together. Vanya can only imagine how lavishly comfortable the bed in the Royal suite must be compared to anything else in the damn country.

“Please. I need that,” she admits breathlessly, and with her concession she is released from his grasp to dry off.

-

Just as suspected, and somewhat ironically, Pagan has a King-sized bed. Although, as Vanya settles herself on one side of the mattress, still peering around the sunny bedroom inquisitively, she thinks it may be even larger still. Even sprawled out among the expensive sheets and piles of pillows that smell so much like King Min himself, they could easily fit another three people with room to spare on the thing. And _dear god_ , it is ridiculously comfortable.

His bedroom is as immaculate as the rest of the palace, decorated with more personality than the rest of the apartments. On the windowsill that peers out to a cozy balcony he keeps a jasmine plant, looking lovingly tended and well cared-for. Little photos in ornate frames are scattered here and there, some selfies and some candid snapshots of himself and the people he cares for. Everything is so wonderfully, terribly domestic that it's almost unreal.

Pagan bustles about drawing the blinds on the windows, humming cheerily to himself as he turns the lock on the balcony door. He's lost in his own little world, going about the motions of getting his room comfortable for a late afternoon nap like he does this regularly. When he seems satisfied with the state of things, he tugs the towel off his waist and tosses it onto a nearby armchair, climbing into the bed as naked as she is.

Just nesting down into his pillows, he stops suddenly and lifts his head, blinking like he's been caught off guard by something. Vanya follows his gaze, and the hand that reaches up to grasp at something tucked beneath the pillow his head is on.

From beneath it he withdraws a sage green garment she’d recognize anywhere. The very same shirt she'd been in on her long flight from America to Kyrat.

And sure as anything, Pagan catches her watching and reads her startled expression for what it is.

“Oh this is terribly embarrassing,” he admits bashfully, snorting, “I have an explanation, I promise.”

“How long have you had that?” Vanya asks, raising an eyebrow, not sure what to think, “I never saw it again after your servants took my dirty laundry for the first time.”

“Ah, well… _that long_ ,” Pagan laughs, “I may have missed you a little too terribly, despite how bitter we'd been back then. It was a creature comfort. It smelled like you, and picked me right back up again.”

Those words linger in her head long after he’s closed his mouth, tossed the shirt towards his discarded towel, and settled into his pillows. They circle over and over in her head until she’s dizzy, and compelled to climb into his open arms as he holds them out for her. Pagan receives her with a soft whimper of approval, tucking her head beneath his chin and stroking her hair adoringly.

“That has to be one of the sweetest things you’ve ever told me,” she admits into his throat as she nudges her nose against the hollow of his collarbones.

“Really? That I kept your shirt and slept with it because I couldn’t get over you?” he snorts, “my, my, your standards are low.”

“They _were_ incredibly high before you came along,” she teases, easing one leg up to hook over his thigh.

Pagan smooths his hands over her back, merely chuckling in response, and he sighs heavily. The comfortable silence that ensues leaves her both anxious and content, a warring pair of emotions that leave her a little rattled the more she dwells on them. She can’t help but to think of what exactly it is she’s doing here. Sure, she’s slept with him a time or two. Sure, they’ve established that they love each other. Sure, this is certainly the very single place that she wants and _needs_ to be right now, here in his embrace in his bed, listening to the hushed whisper of rain that’s started to pour outside.

_But will she stay here? Is this home, after everything she’s been through?_

Paul is here, even if he’s upset with her. He’s been trying to finally, _finally_ build a relationship with her. Ajay is here, her first friend and confidante in this foreign country. Through everything he’s bent over backwards to protect her. _Pagan is here_. He wants to _marry her_. Or, at least, in that passionate moment in the bell tower he did. Does he now? His love runs deeper than she could have ever imagined, risking life and limb to save her sorry ass, but _how deep? Does he want her here forever?_

“Vanya? Darling?” Pagan cranes his neck to peer down at her, face screwed up with concern, “You’re breathing so fast again, are you alright? Anxiety?”

That she is, she realizes as she shakes herself from her whirling thoughts. Certainly, undeniably, she’s anxious, and bordering on falling too far into that deep pit that’ll inevitably ruin her night.

“Pagan?” She blurts, and he smiles brightly in response.

“Yes?”

“Can I stay here?”

“...you didn’t think you could? That I didn’t want you by my side, _dusha_ _?_  My apologies if I’ve given any indication otherwise, truly, but-” he chuckles, raising an eyebrow.

“No, no, like... _fuck,_ I mean-… can I _stay here?”_ Vanya manages to get out with heavy emphasis.

Pagan softens, his bemused confusion washing away in favor of a smile positively dripping with honey-sweet ardor.

“Oh, sweetheart, Kyrat is your home now. I should hope you choose to stay. What would make you think otherwise?” he croons, nuzzling his way into a tender, chaste kiss, “This palace is yours as much as it is mine, as much as it is Ajay’s and Gary’s and Kamran’s.”

His hands have begun to wander as he adores her, his fingertips dancing down her ribcage and along her thigh. Something about the touch feels much more _comforting_ than sexual at the moment. As though he’s trying to work soothing little patterns into every inch of her until her breathing calms down and she gets herself out of her own head. And she’ll be damned if it isn’t working like a charm. He knows her too well by now.

“So I can... move into this bedroom, if I want?” she whispers, shivering hard as he runs his palm across her lower stomach, dancing so terribly close to touches far more intimate.

Instinctively, she spreads her legs for him, sucking in a sharp breath through her nose and tucking her head into his shoulder once more.

“I’ve already planned to ask the staff to move your belongings here tomorrow,” Pagan murmurs, the corners of his lips twisting as he slides his hand deftly between her parted thighs to find purchase.

He bypasses her clit, only brushing it softly in passing as he curls two fingers into her, drawing a gasp from her lips. _Fuck_ she needs this, needs him, but she’s not in it for the end goal. No, just feeling him there, stroking that sparking heat soothingly into her is more than she could ask for. It’s exactly what she’s been aching for. They can take things slow now, as slow as they want. They have nowhere to go and nothing to fear, no urgency any more.

“And Pagan...” Vanya pauses to whimper softly, “what... what are we?”

She fully expects another chuckle, another lovingly chastising remark, but Pagan merely smiles all the wider as he strokes her.

“I think most cultures call these relationships _boyfriend and girlfriend_ , but that seems a tad too... improper for what we are,” he muses, pressing a kiss to her forehead as he eases another finger into her slowly, “I don’t know that there’s a proper title to assign _us_. You’ve made it clear you’re not ready to be my fiancée, at least not yet. But you’re so much more than that trite little word. _Girlfriend... feh_.”

_So he does still want her hand..._

“Give it time,” she says, voice wavering on the edge of a soft little moan, every inch of her prickling with goosebumps from his delicate, purposeful touch, “I’m more ready than you think, even if not _completely_. Let’s give a relationship a try before anything else. And before you say it – a _real_ one. What if you can’t stand my snoring? Or my morning hygiene routine? Or how I fold my clothes in the closet?”

This earns her a chuckle in earnest, the sound washing through her like sweet music and pooling in the pit of her stomach with the pleasure he’s working into her very core. She may not be anywhere near her peak, nor does she think she really cares much if she ever gets there, but by god it feels incredible. Comforting, almost, to feel the slick friction of his fingers sliding into her in a slow, steady rhythm.

“Dear heart, if I can handle the things we’ve been through already, I’m positive this will work out just fine. But you’re right. We’ll give it to the end of monsoon season, eh?” he laughs, as though this is some joke she should understand, though she thinks she understands the gist of it, “...do you want me to continue? Are you enjoying this?”

_God_ , even when he’s already doing everything right he still comes out with something so endearing that it breaks her heart. He’s focused on her, and nothing else, and she’ll be damned if she isn’t falling for him all over again here in his bed. _Their bed_.

“Keep going,” Vanya nods, “I don’t even need to come, just... I want to keep feeling you.”

Pagan purrs in appreciation, tucking his chin above her head and pulling her close with his other arm. She surrenders to his touch and to his hold, melting into him as the rain picks up outside. She could lay this way forever with him, just listening to his heartbeat and rocking slowly into his palm, basking in the glow of his love.

There’s still so much to talk about, so much she wants to know and to understand. But here and now, in this amniotic place, with the rain beating down on the palace around them, none of it rightly matters any more. Tomorrow will be a new day, a fresh start, and she can face the hard things then. Today, here in the King’s bed, wrapped up in Pagan’s arms, her only concern is keeping that smile on his face.

After all they’ve been through, after all she’s been thrown into headlong thanks to that one fateful visit in St. Paul, she can breathe again.

Tomorrow is Saturday.

_Saturday mornings are usually for sleeping in, usually for savoring and going slow and letting all the sleepiness out of the system._

Saturday mornings are for waking up, safe and sound, _loved and secure_.

_She’s home._


	21. Epilogue

In all of two months, so much at the palace has changed drastically, but most importantly there is now a vacant room where a raven-haired wayward daughter once stayed. Her belongings have been boxed up and filtered out, and the only remnant of her stay there is a single sock without a match, lingering in its drawer. The room is empty, but not forgotten, and still furnished and ready for use should a sensible guest come by for a stay. After all, once it had been Ajay's temporary room. Before that, Divya had stayed a night. Before that, any number of visiting celebrities or dignitaries or passersby. It will be occupied again someday.

The Royal Apartments have taken up a new occupant in lieu of the guest suite's absentee. One spitfire, tough-as-nails Gadyuka now warms the other side of the King's expansive bed at night. Her belongings have slowly spread their way out to intermingle with his own. Photographs of the two of them stand on their dresser beside snapshots of Ajay, and Ishwari, and the Harmons, and Marina. He's even let her foster her own succulent plant beside his potted jasmine. They often share shampoo, or rather he’s fond of hers, as the smell of her hair in any form still makes his chest clench up every time.

Things are peaceful. And they’re still adapting, but they’re learning as they go. Pagan may not like the way she tends to sleep on top of him at night, but then he’s damn well guilty of doing the same thing himself if she’s not. They're both too clingy for their own good. But that's just the way they like it. After everything they've been through, neither of them likes much to leave the other's side for long if they don’t have to.

-

“Hurry up honey bear,” he hears Vanya call from the apartment doorway as he's just stepping into his loafers, “Ajay just texted me. Paul just pulled through the fortress, he’s on his way up.”

“Don't honey bear me, Vanya,” Pagan retorts, snorting as he peers into the mirror one final time and turns on his heel, “you only ever call me that when you're chiding me. You look lovely.”

Lovely doesn’t put a finger on her, but if he lists off each adjective he felt she deserved, they’ll be late for dinner. Never has he thought he'd enjoy seeing a Kurti on her, of all things, but she's taken a liking to traditional dress and he won't stop her. At the least, she's let him pad her wardrobe with a choice few more elegant things for the proper occasions.

“You've got my favorite suit on,” Vanya muses, looking him over intently enough to make him just a little self-conscious.

“ _This_ one is your favorite, really? Not the pink one? That's my trademark, after all,” he says in jest, and she rolls her eyes.

“No, no, this one makes you look like a glittery gray dove. Besides. It's the one you wore to Paul's fête that night, remember? It's _special_ ,” she purrs as she sidles up to him, taking hold of the lapels in either hand delicately.

The gentle rub of her soft lips over his still thrills him the same as it did the first time up there in the sky, miles between Kyrat and St. Paul, and damned if she doesn’t always seem to know _just_ when to kiss him and leave him speechless. As fast as she's pulled him in, she sweeps away and she's out the door in a flurry of curls and linen, humming to herself as she strides off down the hallway. And damned if he doesn't stumble right on after her like a man enchanted, hurrying down the hall and downstairs to the dining room where dinner is already spread out lavishly on the table.

Ajay is already kicked back in his usual seat to the left of the table head, and he cranes his neck back to watch Pagan come in. He tips his wine glass casually in greeting before turning back to his cell phone in his other hand, swiping through his conversations.

“Gary just met Paul out front,” he says as he locks his phone and sets it face down on the table, “goody-goody. So excited.”

Vanya snickers at the bar where she's pouring two stiff drinks, one for each of them, and he has to kick the back of Ajay's chair in passing to silently remind him to be more courteous. Rightful mess De Pleur may be, he's still deserving of at least a _little_ respect.

Pagan seats himself at the end of the table, settling into his old chair with a sigh, and not moments later his lover joins him, offering up his brandy to his ready grasp. In all his years he's never thought he’d want a partner who shared his taste for fine alcohol, but she's never failed to surprise him at every turn of their blossoming relationship.

“I'm nervous, Pagan,” she whispers beside him as she teeters in her seat, both of them picking up on the muffled chatter of their final two guests entering the palace upstairs.

Gently, he takes her left hand in both of his and gives it a firm squeeze, patting it soothingly. Of all the things in the world to be nervous about, dinner with her father is an unexpected one to make that list, among other things. Of course, he's seen her preparing for tonight. He's watched her pore over internet article after article searching for just the right tidbit of information until she found the perfect weapon for her arsenal tonight. Her dedication to this is rightly terrifying. She has a plan, and Paul is the final piece to fall into place.

“You’ll be just fine, dear heart. What is it you told me? _Imagine the look on his face?”_

“…you're right,” she grins, and that's that.

“Hey hey! Sorry I'm late boss. Van,” Paul clambers in like a whirlwind, loud as always, nodding at him and at Vanya, “hope dinner didn’t get too cold!”

“No, no, you're quite alright De Pleur,” Pagan waves his hand dismissively, still clasping her hand with the other, “we've all only just sat down a moment ago. Please, have a seat.”

Paul plops himself into the seat Gary has pulled out for him, spreading out and making himself comfortable at the table. In all his time serving the King, he's never once learned the proper etiquette of these sorts of affairs. But such is the way of Paul Harmon, he supposes. He's come to expect it from him by now, after that fiasco in St. Paul, over Vanya's good cooking.

“What's the occasion anyway?” De Pleur asks idly as he unwraps his silverware and drapes the napkin over his lap – _at least he understands that much about table manners._

“Oh, you know, family dinner,” Vanya waves her other hand dismissively after setting down her drink, and he sees so much of himself in the gesture that he can’t help but laugh.

It seems the notion is lost on him, however, that his employer should be included in this _family affair_. Pagan tilts his head to Vanya with a knowing smile, and the ravenous grin she gives back is withering. She’s waiting like a snake coiled to strike when the time is right. Her fangs are sharpened. She's itching for this.

“I think we should have plenty more of these in the future, actually, Paul,” he adds, tucking into his food, “family dinners are _so lovely_.”

De Pleur blinks slowly. Once. Twice. Thrice before he clears his throat and puts his fork down.

“Uh what?”

“Just glad to have you around, dad,” Vanya smiles benignly, leaning back in her seat, “how’s everything at Varshakot?”

_Apparently she's not quite ready. He’ll be patient for her._

“Uh. Things are fine I guess. We've got some fresh faces in out of the reserves, and a lot of pissed off rebels running around like chickens with their heads cut off,” Paul says with a wry smile, “Would be nice to have a certain someone out there instilling terror on the pigs, but hey, she's busy, I get it.”

Beside him, Vanya scoffs, and he offers her hand a squeeze to placate her. Things have been nothing but tense behind the scenes between her and her father, especially after he learned of their affair. Not that Pagan did anything but agitate the situation by rubbing it in his face with haughty pride the next day.

“The Golden Path will operate just fine with one less head on its shoulders,” Ajay pipes up as he cuts into his filet, not looking up from his plate.

He's right. That fierce woman Amita will soon have the reigns in her hands if she has anything to say about it. Oh, they've got dossiers upon dossiers about her upbringing in the North and purge to the South. She'll be a handful herself, too, but if there's one thing she’ll do that Sabal didn’t, it's _listen_. Amita is cunning. She's smart. And she knows when to bargain. And perhaps he'll stand a chance at meeting her somewhere in the middle after everything that’s happened.

Pagan watches as Ajay fiddles just a little too long with his knife in the steak, having long since sliced off his bite of meat. He's glowering down at the plate, brooding like he hates the very food set out before him. But he knows better. It's not an _angry_ expression, no. He’s _resentful._

“Paul, how is Sabal?” he pipes up, and watches Ajay's entire demeanor change in an instant, perking up with interest.

“Oh, he's miserable. Tells me every session that he hates my filthy guts and still wants your ‘wriggling, deplorable blond carcass' or something like that, who the fuck knows,” Paul says cheerily, gesturing with a forkful of food towards him, “man Ajay I really gotta thank you for handing him over to me. Holy shit. What a prize. He's _still_ coughing up new information every week or so! I think he thinks we're gonna let him out eventually if he does. I mean. You could have killed the fucker in Banapur, and that would have been amazing. But there's poetic justice about you letting him live and handing him over to me.”

Oh, how Ajay comes alive with this news, straightening up in his chair and turning to face De Pleur.

“Do you think I could come down and, uh… pay him a visit sometime?” the boy asks eagerly, “I'm not saying I agree with what you do to _most people_ in your back rooms but uh… I've got unfinished business.”

“Oh sure! Any time, Ajay. He’s got a cozy little room in the basement at my manor now,” Paul winks so blatantly it’s a wonder the man thinks he's attempting theatrics, “come down any time you want. Van, you too.”

She bristles again, squeezes his hand with a vice grip. This time she's genuinely upset. Pagan can see it in her eyes when he turns to look at her. Vanya paints a perfect picture of self-control, looking for all the world like she isn’t bothered in the slightest. But he knows those wild eyes. He recognizes the pain still fresh in them as she sits so silently, trying to enjoy her dinner without an altercation. Without flashbacks of that week in Banapur.

 _No, this won't do_.

“Paul, I hope you know that the deposition and subsequent transfer of custody of Sabal Bhandari to your tender loving care means you won’t be getting a Christmas bonus this year from your generous future Son In-Law,” Pagan pipes up, cheerily interrupting the low chatter at the table.

The new squeeze of her long fingers is an eager one. He can turn her day around just as quickly as Ajay's, apparently. And he quite enjoys doing it. Although, quite frankly, if he never has to say those three words again when speaking to Paul Harmon, he’ll be all the better for it.

“No Christmas bonus?” Paul drivels obliviously, “I mean. I guess with my divorce impending I won't be allowed to send Ashley any gifts back home. At least not this year.”

“Nope. No bonus from your _future Son In-Law_.”

 _There_. That’s twice he’s had to say it now. Far beyond his requisite.

Vanya snickers beside him, teetering in her seat again anxiously, and beneath the table she presses her knee firmly against his own. She's done so well keeping her composure so far, blessed woman. Now she's eager to pounce the moment she senses confusion in him.

“Well thanks anyway, for, yanno, the wellspring of rebel secrets-"

 _“Oh for fuck's sake Paul!”_ Vanya interrupts incredulously, startling everyone at the table.

Poor Gary nearly drops, clutching at his chest at the end of the table like he's seen a ghost.

Pagan can’t help but to grin wide and proud as she rips her hand from his concealing grasp and holds it up in the air for him to see. Glittering in the low overhead light is a gaudy diamond, set in the same gold bezel as the one in his left ear. In fact, it's the very same, or rather the _other one_. Pragmatist that she is, she’d outright demanded that they use the diamond earring he never wears in his other ear.

 _Why buy a new diamond when you have one right here?_ she'd said, _it's a piece of you, too._ And damned if he hadn't smiled cheerily to her face, turned right around, and nearly sobbed.

“Wh- You- Hang on…” Paul spreads his palms on the table, flushing an embarrassing shade of red, “you’re not serious. Oh you can’t be. You _can't be!”_

Panic is rising in De Pleur's voice, spittle is flying from his lips. He grabs his drink with a shaking hand, and takes a long swill to steady himself. Vanya simply settles her hand in Pagan’s lap under the table, and he offers her a sidelong grin as he closes his hand over hers on his thigh. She squeezes him when Paul slams his empty cup down, and she’s grinning from ear to ear. She's enjoying this little game of carrot-on-stick.

“We're engaged. We're serious. It's been two weeks now. We wanted to wait until the ring was finished to show you,” she says simply, “the wedding will probably happen sooner rather than later. In the spring, I’m hoping. That’ll make it a full year from when I tumbled into Kyrat.”

 _Oh_ that honey-sweet look she affords him, burning right through to his very soul as she rubs little circles into his leg. To think of it – a man like him, sitting alone at the top of the world without a prospect for his future besides the same monotony for years to come, now looking his future wife in the eye and thinking of their future _together_. And by god, she's dared to utter the word _children_ in the last week or so, the bold woman. So young and full of optimism, she's so sure he'd be a good father.

“Vanya don’t you think you're rushing into this?! I mean for fuck's sake, it's only been a few months!” Paul cries, throwing up his hands, “I mean holy shit I'm happy for you and all, but… isn’t he supposed to ask your father first?!”

“…Paul. If you think for one _damned_ second that I’d ever consider subscribing to that backwards, outdated wish-wash and come to _you_ of all men to ask for permission to marry Vanya…” Pagan cuts back at him, hefting a dinner roll in the direction of his head, much to Vanya’s delight, “I also hear you trying to tell me in that statement that you think the King of Kyrat needs permission to do something. Try again.”

De Pleur sucks in a breath to defend himself, a little frazzled from ducking a soaring dough ball, and just about gets a word in edgewise when Vanya clears her throat so loudly the simmering chaos at the table comes to a halt.

“The past is over. The future hasn’t happened yet. The only time is now,” she says cheerily, but there's venom in her smile.

_Doctor Fucking Phil._

She's been poring over god-damned Doctor Phil quotes for days since he so spontaneously popped the question to her after she came stumbling out of a rigorous interrogation session. It was a tireless search for just the right quote to whip out at her father tonight, like a sneaky little trap. She'd been so purely _Vanya_ that evening. Her bobbed hair wilder than usual, her eyes wide pools of black, blown open from the adrenaline rush of her intense session in there in the dark. She smelled of smoke, and sweat, and _fear_ , someone else's, and above it all, _her._ That silky sweet Vanya smell in her hair that he'd wear on his wrists if he could bottle it and remind himself of her when she wasn't around during the day.

He hadn’t even had a ring then. No, he'd just… blurted the question out, first thing. Just like he had the first time, there in the bell tower. She'd said hello, she was surprised to see he'd popped down for a visit to Varshakot, and the first three goddamn words from his lips in response were _please marry me._

“You… just… _Phil?!”_ Paul keens hoarsely, eyes narrowing, “ _oh_ that's dirty. I'm sorry. You're both right… congratulations. I'm happy for you. Sort of. Mostly. Not really happy to be your Fath-"

“ _Don't fucking say it De Pleur_ ,” Pagan interrupts with a halfhearted snarl, jabbing a challenging finger at him from down the table.

“Father In-Law,” he finishes, smugly.

 _“Bah!_ Bloody awful!” Pagan tosses his hands in the air, laughing heartily, and the tension in the room mercifully dissolves, “I'm going to go get some fresh air. It gets awfully hot in this dining room when you're discussing your first engagement.”

He rises from his chair swiftly and makes to turn when Vanya catches him by the wrist, holding firm. She peers up at him expectantly, as often she does these days, but she must see how frazzled he is for she warms up rather immediately. Sweet, empathetic girl. He smooths her hair back from her face, stroking her head gently for a moment as his hand lingers there in her soft curls. Nobody's saying a thing, and he can feel Paul's eyes burning right into the spot where his thumb finds itself gently stroking up her forehead, but right now she’s all that matters.

Vanya smiles, her eyes glittering in the wan overhead light, and for all the world he’s never been so glad to have taken such a reckless risk. Of all the sheerly slapdash plans and cliff dives he's taken and ran with, the one that brought this woman careening into his life was worth every single risk. Of all the times he's gone and thrown himself into harm's way for someone or something, he'll do it a thousand times again just to see that freckled nose crinkle up when she grins from across the pillows every morning.

“I love you,” Pagan whispers, promising her the world every time he says it.

“I love you too,” she says, holding his eye as his heart catches fire all over again.

“Get a fucking room!”

It's Ajay who chides them, smiling all the while, but whatever face Paul makes at Vanya earns him a well-aimed butter knife sailing right past his ear. She's got shockingly good accuracy.

Pagan uses the ensuing laughter at the table to slip out the courtyard door, floating on his feet. It's cold outside, especially now that it's dark, but he’s warm enough with a good buzz going to handle the chill for a few minutes. The space between them in there, and him out here is graciously relieving. He finds his feet carrying him over the flagstone and towards the family memorial and its old familiar door. Every time he crosses this path and comes to the threshold, it never gets any easier. In all these years, the pain of this one simple thing has never lessened. All this time, such a thick callous has built up around those old, blackened Ishwari and Lakshmana-shaped caverns in his chest.

Every time he crosses this path and comes to the threshold, he finds himself stopping before he can pull the door open. Once was enough. More than enough, truly. For this lifetime and his next.

And here he is now, his face pressed to the cool wood, the golden paint of the mandala. It should be so easy to reach out, put the key in, turn that handle, and open that door. It should be so simple to walk in and pay them both a visit. But he can't bring himself to move his hands from where they’re splayed on either side of him, pressing into the door.

His family is waiting for him back inside, and he's out here pining. No use ruining his own mood, not on a momentous evening such as it is. And so, Pagan closes his eyes, pressing his forehead to the wood until it nearly hurts to do so. And he utters the first thing that comes to mind. A parting gift, as he always leaves them with when he comes by for a visit. Usually, he'll mutter something asinine through the door. Sometimes he says nothing but goodbye.

Tonight, he whispers, “I love you too.”

And that's that.

Forcing himself away from the little building, he stuffs his hands in his pockets and wills his legs to carry him back to the warm palace.

His hand falls on the doorknob and stills, unwilling to turn and grant him access. His chest grows tight, and he can feel that taut invisible string going right through him, strung between one doorknob and the other. His past is behind him, warm and fragrant and chiming like bells on the wind behind that wooden door, locked away and neatly compartmentalized just as it should be. His future is before him, just as warm, but so much brighter.

Pagan turns the knob, and of course the door is unlocked. It always is, and always has been. As he pulls it open, the frigid courtyard is flooded with joyous laughter and warm conversation, a tableful of his most important people. He leaves the door open behind him as the clenching in his chest slips away on the breeze, and returns to the table a new man.

-

Tomorrow. _Tomorrow._

There are cakes and appetizers and finger foods to bake and organize. Booze to truck over from the _raksis_ , flowers being shipped from half a world over at _someone’s_ request. Fucking tablecloths coming in by the dozens. So many odds and ends and loose things to tidy up, and he doesn’t want to have to hear from Gary about another single one of them. And the cake, God the cake, apparently won’t be finished until tomorrow morning.

Pagan certainly hasn’t expected how much of a logistical nightmare hosting a Royal Wedding in Kyrat would be. No proper bakeries, or caterers, no vendors of any such _quality_ products like, oh, say, chairs, tables, fucking _any_ wedding necessity. But legitimacy unfortunately calls for pomp and circumstance. He hadn’t even wanted to have a large affair in the first place, but Vanya had talked him into it. It’d started out as a shits-and-giggles sort of thing, but when they’d actually put thought into it, the publicity was probably for the best. England does it, broadcasted on a multinational stage. Why can’t Kyrat?

“King Min, Miss Vanya has returned,” one of Paul’s servants pipes up from the lower floor.

De Pleur has graciously leant them free reign of the manor until tomorrow, as the palace is abuzz with absolute chaos while the household staff scrambles to accommodate some of the visiting dignitaries. It’s a wonder anyone else from outside the country has bothered to come, but Prime Minister Tshering and His Excellency Win Myint have arrived this morning ahead of tomorrow’s festivities. Trudeau, unfortunately, sent his fondest regrets due to the exorbitant travel expenses involved.

He really should have the staff member shot for daring to refer to his fiancée as _Miss Vanya_ , but it just won’t do to go around picking off the help when they’re already so short today. Pagan sighs and turns away from the balcony, striding into the dining room just as that beautiful creature peaks the staircase and melts his heart with a smile.

“Well hello, _dusha_ , how was your excursion?” he purrs as she slots herself right into his outstretched arms, meeting him for an eager kiss.

“ _Kanye_ , Pagan?” is her response as she pulls back to look him in the face, holding him by the shoulders, “You invited _Kanye West?”_

“I’ve been telling Ajay for well over a year now that I’d love to meet that man. My people got in touch with his people, offered up some money for a short little celebratory serenade from him at the reception tomorrow, yada yada...” he shrugs, smoothing his hands down her hips, “I take it things at the palace are just fine, then? And you found the rings?”

Vanya rolls her eyes harder than he’s seen her do in quite a long time, and from the pocket of her jacket she withdraws the little wooden box she’d set off to fetch from their bedroom. Of all the things they’d packed to stay here for the next week, _somehow_ he’d forgotten to put their wedding bands in the goddamn suitcase.

“They were right where you left them. Kanye followed me into the apartment and back. He insisted he see ‘how Real' I was. Your Aunt Cho stopped me on my way out, by the way,” she says, her face softening as she settles back into his arms again, “She told me to tell you hello, and she thinks you’re doing pretty well for yourself. But that your taste in interior decorating is shit, and that my _birthing hips_ are suitable for at least four sons before I’m barren. She also wants you to call her more often, she says.”

Pagan cracks, he can’t help it. It’s the goddamn matter-of-fact delivery of this information relay that gets him. He snickers for a good while before he gets control of himself, wiping a tear from his eye.

“Of course she did. Lovely woman, really. She has an eye for good stock when she sees it. Consider yourself fortunate that she thinks you’re suitable for me,” he snorts, “I _really_ should not have invited any of the Mins, truly I shouldn’t have. After everything...”

“We’re both in the same boat, honey bear,” Vanya says as she pulls herself from his loose hold to tug him towards the stairs, “Laura and Ashley are here, so I’ve been told, and that’s a _whole thing_ , they’re trying to avoid Paul like the plague until they have to see him tomorrow. And some of my mom’s family is here. My grandpa Rotenberg came, bless his heart. Two distant uncles from Russia insisted they stay at the palace and see how Kings live. I’ve never met them. Come on. I want to take a walk with you. Blow off some steam.”

It’s the easiest thing in the world to simply follow behind her, being led along by their fingers intertwined. He leaves all his worries behind in the dining room as she leads him downstairs and out the front door, out onto the sunny front walk. It’s pleasantly warm outside, a far cry from how chilly it had been the last time the two of them took this walk together. Pagan squeezes her hand as he recalls that awful afternoon. The two of them had sat right here on these stairs and chiseled away at old wounds until they were fresh and bleeding again.

Vanya falters, and she must feel his gait slowing as he loses himself in the memory, and she turns back to him with her head tilted in question, taking up his other hand and clasping them both in her own.

“Do you remember when we sat right here, after that ambush in the jeep? Caked in blood and soot and filth, so _angry_ at each other?” he asks quietly, too afraid to mention it any louder than the gentle breeze blowing by them.

“Of course I do,” she says, running her thumbs over the backs of his hands, “And I remember when you kissed me back like you really meant it down there in Paul’s office, just before that.”

Her ever-present optimism will surely be the death of him someday. Darling girl.

“And I remember, unfortunately, just how many walls we had built up between us. How painful that was... I don’t know what I was afraid of, Vanya...” Pagan whispers as he closes his eyes, leaning in to press his forehead to hers, “But I suppose none of that needs to be dwelled upon, does it? We’re here now. We’re getting married tomorrow. In twenty-four hours, you’ll be my _wife_.”

Vanya shivers, he can feel it, and when he opens his eyes she’s burning holes right through him, fire in her gaze. She hesitates to speak, her lips parted soundlessly, and her brow scrunches up in just the way that makes her nose crinkle. There’s something eating at her. She’s been this way for days now, on and off having bouts like this where she can’t seem to find the right words to say to him it seems. But this time, they make it past the barrier.

“Pagan... I-… want so fucking badly to marry you, but do you really think we should be going through with this whole Royal Wedding tomorrow?” she asks, choosing her words very carefully, “What if we just did the coronation and left it at that and... Oh I don’t know... I’m scared. Television? Cameras? Queen? In front of the whole goddamn world, half my family, and foreign dignitaries I’ve never even heard of?”

 _Oh_ how he feels this ache too. This nagging seed of doubt and second-guessing. Let alone that he detests cameras.

“Vanya, if I had it my way I’d marry you right here, right now, where we stand. I’m not particularly fond of the sheer amount of money and time I’ve had to invest in this whole sordid affair,” Pagan sighs, reaching up to tuck a wayward curl behind her ear carefully, “but we have to, I’m afraid. We’ve put far too much effort into the thing now to go back on it. We could cut the financial losses, sure, but the people, oh, the _people_ involved will have our heads for it.”

She casts her glance downward, away from him, trying not to spook herself. He can tell she’s still caught up on something.

“And besides, dear heart, think of it this way. It’s just you and me up there, really truly making this _thing_ of ours a reality. But I should also add: It’s a Royal fucking Wedding. I detest the pomp and circumstance of it all, but Vanya. We’re on the world stage for a day. We’re making history. Vanya, you’re a _Queen_ tomorrow, for all the useless laurels that title bears outside this country,” he coos, trying to encourage her _somehow_.

“Just do it, Pagan,” Vanya says, finally looking up again as though she’s shaken herself from a trance, “You have the authority, right?”

“Do what?”

“Marry me. Right here. You’re the King. You can.”

“I-… you’re _right_ ,” he says, realization dawning on him with a hot rush of relief, “but what about tomorrow?”

“We’ll have our cake and eat it too. Think of how much easier it’ll be for the both of us if we’re already through with the whole thing, and it’s just a show? No more pressure, no more high emotions,” she grins as she separates from him again.

And just like that, she’s dancing off down the walk, skirts aflutter, and she comes to rest standing beneath one of Paul’s cherry trees. She leans back against the trunk, watching him expectantly, and reaches a hand out to him.

“Here, this looks like a great place. Come on,” Vanya smiles, and that’s all it takes.

Pagan takes haste in joining her beneath the stately tree, looking up into the branches as strong gust of wind shakes blossoms loose, raining them down on their heads. She looks pure as anything, bright eyed and sunny smiles as those rosy petals come to settle in her raven curls. It wasn’t so long ago at all that they stood very close to these cherry trees, that very same afternoon after the ambush near Rajgad. But on that afternoon, he’d broken her heart, and his own in the process. Now, he supposes they’ll be mending them right and proper once and for all.

She turns to face him, sunlight dappling her freckled face like she’s been kissed by any Gods who bear witness to this private moment of theirs. They’re really doing this, then. He takes a deep breath and exhales sharply through his nose, cupping her precious face in his palm like it would pain him to let go of it ever again.

“Do we need to say any vows?” she asks as she leans into his palm.

 _“Do we?”_ Pagan retorts softly, returning her question in kind.

“If it’s as simple as you saying I’m your wife, then...” Vanya spreads her hands on his chest, sparking fire under her fingertips where she dances across his open collar.

He draws in nearer to her, closing some of that unnecessary distance when all he craves is to be as close to her as possible. He can feel the heat radiating off of her, flushed from the afternoon sun and her jaunt up North and back, and it still staggers him how very _real_ she is. Not a dream, not an apparition, not some figment of his imagination, just _Vanya_. Pure and unadulterated strength, and grace, and _fire_ under soft, supple, squeezable skin and more freckles than he imagines there must be stars in the sky. She’s been through so much because of him, and _still_ she stands here nestled up to him, ready and willing to tie herself to him for the rest of his life.

“Well, I suppose I could say...” he murmurs thoughtfully as he winds his arms around her waist, closing that gap between them until they’re pressed up full-length together, “do you take me to be your husband?”

Her eyes crinkle with delight and she fists her hands into his jacket, clutching the fabric tight.

“I do.”

His heart flops over in his chest, giddiness fluttering through him.

“And I take you to be my wife,” Pagan promises, giving her the world a thousand times over with every heavy thrum of his pulse, “Truly I do. You may kiss the bride.”

The heated, tender rub of her lips over his wipes all fear from his mind and worry from his heart. Vanya's hands are trembling as she slides them up to cup either side of his neck, and damned if his aren’t too. She whimpers into their kiss as it turns to tongues, and teeth, and gasps, and when at last they part for air he feels as though he's split his soul right down the middle and passed half of it off to her. But so then has she, and he must be full up with half hers, for he feels _complete_. And then he laughs, can't even help himself. He's so elated, exhilarated, positively vibrating with joy that it's perfectly natural just to pull her into his chest and throw his head back and cackle to the trees and the mountains.

The both of them descend into a fit of it until Pagan falls back against the tree, sliding to the ground and welcoming her into his lap as she falls to straddle him fluidly.

“Pagan, I love you,” Vanya says, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes, “so fucking much.”

_Look at her. Really look at her._

Her face is flushed, rosy and bright, and her lashes are all aglitter with dewy tears from her good hard laugh. Cherry blossoms cling to her hair and her chemise like pink confetti. She's wild, she's unbidden, she's so full of youth and energy and this blazing inferno that blinds him when he lingers too close.

_And she is his wife._

“I love you too,” he finally says, the words catching in his throat, “Vanya Min.”

She shivers with delight, lighting up like a spark, and the grin that takes over her face breaks his heart in a thousand different ways. All the right ways.

“I… really am your wife now?” she asks, her hands coming to rest on his shoulders as he grasps at her hips, “forreal?”

“Yes, _dusha_ , for real. Congratulations, you have a husband,” Pagan chuckles, treasuring the unadulterated delight this brings her, “whatever will you do?”

“Oh, I have plenty of ideas,” Vanya purrs, “and just about all of them right now involve just the way we’re sitting right now...”

 _Oh_ that naughty woman. She dares to grind her hips forward, knowing _just_ where she’s sat and just how they’re pressed against each other. She must know just what he craves whether he himself does or not, for he comes alive at that friction between them.

And just like that, they unwind, colliding like there’s nothing in this world they’d rather do in this moment. Husband and wife, sinking onto each other, into each other as though they have all the time in the world, and yet not enough at all. Right here underneath this cherry tree, warm and all aglow in the afternoon sun. She gets her skirts hiked up with trembling hands, he manages to fumble his trousers out of the way, and in a hot, shuddering slide they join together, gasping into kisses, crooning into shoulders. The whole world as their witness, the mountains as their silent guardians, they make their love slow and sweet and deep, in no rush to reach any conclusion any time soon. Just the tender, feverish savoring of each other and that smoldering fire in between them, stoking the flames ever brighter.

He can stay this way forever, caught between worlds, trapped in a blissful nirvana surrounded by the very essence of her. This is the future he has to look forward to, every waking day of his life. _Her._

_Vanya._

-

“You’re fine Pagan,” Ajay says quietly, and he feels his hand on his shoulder, “just ignore the cameras.”

Pagan scans the tree line, looking above the heads of their guests clustered on either side of the petal-littered aisle. The lake is lapping at the foundations of their little platform, with Varshakot presiding behind them across its mirrored waters, and the wind today is all but nonexistent. They’ve been blessed with the perfect day. Now all he has to do is stand tall, keep his composure, and _wait_. Any moment now.

“Did the Drubman boy take care of that issue?” he whispers aside to Ghale, his eyes never leaving the crowd.

“He had a blast this morning clearing all the animals out of the area. You shouldn’t have a problem,” he confirms quietly, and Pagan sighs heavily with relief.

It would do no-one any good to find a badger charging down the aisle ahead of his bride.

“Look alive,” Ajay whispers, and oh-

_She’s breathtaking._

There she is, clutching her father’s arm, absolutely _radiant_ in the lilac and violet _lehenga_ they chose together months ago. With her hair as untamed as ever, the gold embroidery glinting in the sun, head held high with confidence and grace. Those brown eyes burning into his from the other end of the aisle. And god damnit if he doesn’t find tears welling up before he can stop them. He’s never been more thankful for the invention of waterproof mascara than in this very moment.

The crowd rises, turned to face the bride, jubilant and joyous.

Paul’s lower lip is trembling, too, his chest puffed up with pride as he walks his daughter down the aisle towards them.

Ajay’s hand is back on Pagan’s shoulder, squeezing tight in encouragement as Vanya joins him at the altar. The world is watching, and it’s just the three of them here, putting on this show. The mountains are watching, and it’s just him and Vanya, clutching hands, silent and reverent. She sees his tears, and she smiles warmly. She never cries, not even now, but she doesn’t have to. It’s she who’s the most stunning thing in sight, not him.

He doesn’t hear a word that Ajay speaks in introduction, for all he can think is _I love you, I love you_ , on a joyous loop, taking her in, soaking in her presence. He has Vanya to be strong and attentive for him. He’s a right mess himself. He can’t even recall what half the steps are in this strange cultural amalgamation of a ceremony.

“Do you two have vows prepared?” he hears Ajay ask, recited from the script they’d rehearsed probably eight times this morning and he still can’t conjure up.

“We do,” Vanya says, loud and clear, and her voice carries him over the rift.

Yes, he remembers. Of course he does. He’s been waiting to read them to her since the moment he wrote them.

“King Min?” Ghale says softly, and he wants to flinch at the name.

All pomp and circumstance, he has to remember.

“Vanya. My viper. My _dusha,_ my heart and soul. Never did I think that when I came crashing into your life, that you would reach out, take my hand, and pull me right along with you whether I liked it or not. Never did I think that such a wild, fiery creature would willingly settle down with me, and yet somehow I don’t think I’ve tamed you, so much as you’ve shown me how to be just as untamed,” he says, fighting back the urge to choke on his words and kiss her until his tears stop welling up, “You’ve given me the greatest gift in the world – you've shown a man like me that I’m lucky to be alive, to be able to experience this beautifully human emotion called love.

“And today before all days, before the rest of our days, I promise to you that while I may not be the best husband on my worst days, I will give you my all, every day, until I have no heart to love you with any more. I love you.”

He can breathe again, his heart swelling as he watches her wilt with joy.

“Pagan...” Vanya whispers, her voice trembling for the first time, “You came into my life like a force of nature, sweeping me away like a monsoon and carrying me halfway across the world for you. You jammed your fingers right underneath my shell and pried me open, and showed me _myself._ And you loved me for every bit of me, every little thing I discovered and became. When no-one else would see me grow, you were my willing catalyst and my gravitational pull. And above all things, you saved my life.

“You’ve given me the world a thousand times over with every embrace and every kiss and every utterance of ‘I love you’. I promise to you from this day forward that I will be your strength on your worst days, and your greatest supporter on your best days. I will love you with everything in me. I love you.”

Ajay gives them a moment, looking between them both with a calm serenity Pagan wishes he himself had in this moment, and then he withdraws their rings from his pocket, holding them out for the two of them. He holds his breath as he takes hers from his open palm, trying probably far too hard not to drop it. The next few moments are a blur as he stares down at their freckled hands, sliding rings on fingers and clasping the other tight.

He barely registers the rest of their ceremony, walking through the cultural rights that are Kyrat’s alone. These significant rites of passage that set this wedding apart from just another Western affair. Their feet are washed, they’re showered in split, puffed rice, he partakes in the exchange of whatever ghee and lentil mixture they’ve been offered. All of it symbolic and nothing but, at this point, but all the same it’s _important_ today. For a King who has so long shunned the very fabric of Kyrat’s tradition, this is a step in off on the right foot to a better relationship with his people.

At last, mercifully, Vanya settles before him, before their guests, with her hands clasped in front of her, by all rights his wife, with but one last grand task to complete. They’ve gone and made two circlets for this occasion, more trouble than they’re worth but _special_ all the same. He’s never worn a crown before today, but there’s a first for everything.

“Vanya,” he says, clearing his throat, wanting nothing more than to snatch her up in this moment, “On this, our wedding day, that you are my wife by law, I also crown you my Queen, Kyrat’s Queen by title and station.”

She doesn’t want this, never has, and he can see the lingering wariness in her eyes, but she’s assured him times over that she’ll take it. And today, after all they’ve run the ceremonial gambit, and shared such joy with each other, Pagan _does_ see just the slightest inkling of excitement in her eye. Maybe she won’t admit later tonight, if he brings it up, but it’s there, glinting bright.

“I accept my crown, and my station, and will serve my country and Her people with honor and compassion,” she says, and never has he heard such _dusty_ old lines delivered with such utter conviction.

He places his hand softly on her shoulder as she lifts her skirts out of the way and settles on her knees before him reverently, and he can’t help himself but to brush his thumb across her jaw as he lingers there for a moment. Beautiful, poised, tender thing she is. _Oh_ how he loves her, aching and clenching and _yearning_ just to be done with this drawn-out show so he can clutch her tight and truly, honestly appreciate his wife.

Taking up her circlet, Pagan sets it softly on her wild curls, running his fingertips over the winding serpents inlaid in the metal. It strikes him that she looks _wrong_ down here like this, sat before him like she’s nothing more than a subservient thing meant to bow beneath him. _No_ , Vanya is his equal.

“My love,” he whispers as she tilts her head up to meet his eye, her lips trembling, “This is the last time you’ll _ever_ kneel to me.”

The moment she’s on her feet again he pulls her to his chest, crushing her to him and burying his face in her shoulder. He _needs_ this, needs _her_. His strength, his rock, his tether to the ground when he’s off floating away anxiously, losing himself in all this chaos. Vanya winds her arms around his ribs and squeezes him just as tightly, both of them forgetting the world around them for a moment as they find their renewed strength in each other.

When at last they pull away, hands clasped, Pagan gently turns her towards their guests, towards the rest of the world watching out there, and says the only thing that comes to mind, the only thing he can say.

“Vanya Min, everyone!”

Oh how she laughs, her shoulders trembling with every breath, and she spins around to catch him in a giddy kiss as cheers fill the air, a celebration for the books. Euphoria leaves him dizzy and delirious, but the warm, sweet press of her lips to his, over and over like she’s drinking him in, keeps him rooted firmly where he is, swaying with the breeze with his wife in his arms.

“We made it,” she giggles, pulling away to press her forehead into his shoulder, the cool chill of her circlet sending a shiver through him, “God I love you.”

“I love you too, _dusha_ ,” Pagan says breathlessly as Ajay claps him on the shoulder and the world continues to turn around them even as time stands still between them.

“So I think it’s time we think about princes and princesses,” she snorts, and he rolls his eyes heavily, pulling away from her so that he can guide her towards the closing throng of guests gathering to congratulate them.

If this is his future, and these are his allies, and Vanya is right beside him through it all, _he’ll be just fine_.

For the first time in two decades, Pagan hasn’t a worry in the world except how soon this wild animal of his is going to start tracking her fertility, and _that’s just fine._

He can think of no better hurdle to jump next with her. Together they’ll tackle anything.

 

_End._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you SO MUCH for coming on this journey with me, from the bottom of my heart. Crazy to think I took this silly idea and wrote an entire novel, but here we are. Please, if you find the time, drop me a comment and let me know how you enjoyed it. I would love to hear your opinions. Until next time!

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to drop a comment and let me know how I'm doing, how you're doing, what you're enjoying or not enjoying! I'd love to hear from you!
> 
> A huge thanks to Fuzziestpuppy for all her encouraging words and inspiration. I wouldn't be here doing this if she wasn't shoving me forward behind the scenes. I appreciate you!!
> 
> PSSST: I made a playlist of all the songs I've been using to write this fic! And that I associate with different scenes/characters/moods within. Check it out if you're that kinda' reader!  
> http://bit.ly/2MDDfmZ

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [With the Dawn](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19204090) by [Fuzziestpuppy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fuzziestpuppy/pseuds/Fuzziestpuppy)




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